First Republican lawmaker says Trump engaged in impeachable conduct
U.S. Representative Justin Amash, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, became the first Republican lawmaker to say the president has engaged in impeachable behaviour.
His claim formed part of a bullet point list of his reaction via Twitter after reading the redacted version of the report examining whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
He also accused many of his fellow congressmen of not reading the report.
Here are my principal conclusions:
1. Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller’s report.
2. President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.
3. Partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances.
4. Few members of Congress have read the report.— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election reveals that Trump “engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behaviour that meet the threshold for impeachment,” Amash, who has signalled he would consider running as a libertarian against Trump in the 2020 election, wrote on Twitter.
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 wrote.
Trump has said Mueller’s report concluded there no obstruction of justice. Mueller’s report made no formal finding on that question, leaving the matter up to Congress.
