Former Republican Amash Announces He’ll Vote Yes on Three Articles of Impeachment
Representative Justin Amash (I, Mich.) confirmed Friday that he would vote to approve three articles of impeachment laid out by Democrats against President Trump, saying “there’s certainly probable cause to issue charges” against the president for his dealings in Ukraine.
While Amash told CNN’s Manu Raju he wanted to see the final language of the articles of impeachment, he said he will likely support impeachment based on obstruction of Congress, obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
“I think there’s sufficient evidence for all three,” Amash said. “Impeachment is like an indictment.”
“I think there’s sufficient evidence for all three,” Amash said. “Impeachment is like an indictment … There’s certainly probable cause to issue charges.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 6, 2019
Amash, who left the Republican Party earlier this year, sparred with Trump and Republicans over the findings of the Mueller Report, saying in May that “President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.”
“In fact, Mueller’s report identifies multiple examples of conduct satisfying all the elements of obstruction of justice, and undoubtedly any person who is not the president of the United States would be indicted based on such evidence,” Amash tweeted at the time. “Impeachment, which is a special form of indictment, does not even require probable cause that a crime (e.g., obstruction of justice) has been committed; it simply requires a finding that an official has engaged in careless, abusive, corrupt, or otherwise dishonorable conduct.”
The president then fired back, calling the congressman a “total lightweight.”
….he would see that it was nevertheless strong on NO COLLUSION and, ultimately, NO OBSTRUCTION…Anyway, how do you Obstruct when there is no crime and, in fact, the crimes were committed by the other side? Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2019
In October, Amash joined Democrats in a partisan vote to formalize impeachment proceedings and to introduce public hearings. Earlier this week, Amash criticized Democrats for “not engaging more with” constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley during a House Judicial Committee hearing. Turley, who was called by House Republicans as a witness, was not asked a single question by Democrats during morning questioning on Wednesday.
Democrats made a strategic error in not engaging more with Turley. They need to persuade people in the middle and missed an opportunity by spending most of their time questioning their experts rather than Turley, whose testimony was potentially most damaging to President Trump.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) December 5, 2019
