Amash pledges to join Democrats to impeach Trump

Rep. Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican-turned-Independent lawmaker who’s flirting with a presidential bid, has pledged to join House Democrats if they vote to impeach President Trump.

“Yes. Assuming the articles are drafted properly, yeah, I think there’s impeachable conduct that could be included in articles that I would support,” Amash said in a recent interview with The Hill.

The 39-year-old libertarian-leaning congressman said earlier in the year that former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on 2016 election interference had provided enough evidence that Trump had committed impeachable offenses, including abuse of power and obstruction of justice.

{mosads}Mueller in his report said he did not find evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia to interfere in the election but said he could not reach a conclusion on whether Trump had obstructed justice.

Democrats at that time did not press forward with impeachment, but Amash said he backs Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) move to now launch a formal impeachment inquiry after a whistleblower alleged that Trump had pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate one of his top political rivals and interfere in the 2020 election. 

“I think it’s positive that Speaker Pelosi is acting with more force in this case than she did with the Mueller report. When the Mueller report came out, presumably she read it, and she must have seen how bad it was. But then she acted like they still need to gather a lot of evidence,” Amash said. “And I think that sent the wrong message to the public, most of whom did not read the report. If you think there’s something wrong, you have to come out aggressively and say it. And it seems like she’s at least taking a step in that direction.”

A thorn in the side of both parties during his nine years in Washington, Amash made a series of headline-grabbing moves this year: He was the first Republican in Congress to call for an impeachment investigation into Trump in May; he quit the conservative Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus in June; then he declared his independence from the Republican Party altogether on the Fourth of July.

“I personally have never been happier because I don’t feel the suffocating party system,” he said. “I’m liberated from the parties.”

Throughout that time, libertarians and “Never Trumpers” in the GOP have been trying to draft him to challenge Trump in 2020, as a Libertarian candidate. He said he still isn’t ruling out a presidential bid — something he calls a “positive opportunity.” 

But he doesn’t appear to be taking any concrete steps toward a run for the White House, saying he’s focused instead on his constituents back home and running for reelection to his House seat.

“I haven’t ruled it out. I haven’t ruled it out. Like, if you asked me would I rule out being a race car driver, I would say no because I think it would be fun. I’d love to be a music producer,” Amash said.

“I don’t rule things out that are positive opportunities.”

Articles of impeachment could receive a vote on the floor as early as November, Democrats have said.