Amash flees ‘death spiral,’ leaves GOP
Michigan Rep. Justin Amash said Thursday that he’s leaving the Republican party to become an independent as modern politics remains “trapped in a partisan death spiral.”
Penning an op-ed in the Washington Post on the July 4th holiday, Amash described how he had become “disenchanted with party politics” and “frightened by what I see from it.”
“The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions,” Amash wrote.
Amash was the only GOP member of Congress to have come out in favor of impeaching President Donald Trump in light of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Amash said in May that Trump had “engaged in impeachable conduct” regarding obstruction of justice and accused Attorney General William Barr of distorting the report’s conclusions.
The stance drew attacks from the president, saying the lawmaker sought only to make headlines.
“Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents hands!” Trump tweeted.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., also agreed that Amash made his statement because he “wants to have attention.”
Trump responded to Amash in a tweet later Thursday morning, calling him “one of the dumbest & most disloyal men in Congress” and “a total loser.”
Referencing the field of Republican challengers that had announced they would enter the Republican primary against Amash, Trump added, “Knew he couldn’t get the nomination to run again in the Great State of Michigan. Already being challenged for his seat. A total loser!”
Mueller’s report explicitly said that the investigation looked into 10 potentially obstructive acts and the evidence did not clear the president. Rather, it said, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him” and punted that decision to the attorney general. Barr and then-deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ultimately decided not to bring charges against the president.
Amash has been critical of the president and was one of 13 House Republicans to vote for a resolution to terminate Trump’s emergency declaration on border wall funding. He has also considered running as a Libertarian for president.
However, Amash did not comment in the piece on his future political plans or whether he plans to run for reelection in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District centered around Grand Rapids.
His office did not return requests for comment immediately.
In his op-ed, Amash described how he had been a Republican his entire life as his parents, both immigrants, were Republicans, too.
“The Republican Party, I believed, stood for limited government, economic freedom and individual liberty – principles that had made the American Dream possible for my family,” Amash wrote.
Amash was first elected to Congress as part of the Tea Party wave in 2010.