Yesterday, Rep. Justin Amash made headlines when he
became the first Republican lawmaker to turn on President Donald Trump by
acknowledging that the president’s conduct is impeachable, based on a close
reading of the Mueller report.
It was only a matter of time before the thin-skinned
president—who obsessively watches cable news shows—responded.
Sure enough, on Sunday morning, Trump went after Amash on
Twitter, although as with all things Trump, we can’t be certain the president
actually wrote the series of tweets himself. Trump called Amash, who as a founding
member of the House Freedom Caucus hasn’t been particularly noteworthy in terms
of other legislative accomplishments, a “loser.” But the fact that Amash
actually read the 448-page Mueller report sets him apart from most of his GOP
colleagues.
“Never a fan of @justinamash,
a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our great Republican ideas and
policies just for the sake of getting his name out there through controversy,”
Trump tweeted. “If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, ‘composed’ by 18
Angry Dems who hated Trump…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!”
The part of Trump’s comment in which he states, “If he actually read the biased Mueller
Report…” is particularly amusing, given that Trump probably did not read the report. And in Amash’s Twitter
thread on Saturday, the Michigan lawmaker is clear that he “read Mueller’s
redacted report carefully and completely,” and he “discussed this matter with
my staff, who thoroughly reviewed materials and provided me with further
analysis.”
Of course, facts don’t matter to
Trump—we all know that.
Trump’s tweets also show us that he has given up entirely on
trying to mask the fact that he uses Mueller’s report to simultaneously claim
vindication and to further his “witch hunt” narrative that the investigation
was a “Deep State” plot by “18 Angry Dems” planted on Mueller’s team of
investigators.
It’s not clear yet if Amash’s actions will have any type of
snowball effect on other Republicans. House Democrats likely already have
enough votes to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump,
although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t budging yet on her publicly
stated commitment to avoiding them. In the Republican-controlled Senate,
the body of Congress that ultimately would be tasked with voting to convict
Trump, there is no sign that any Republicans are considering abandoning the
Trump Train.
On Sunday, flip-flopping Republican Sen. Mitt Romney
told CNN’s Jake Tapper he didn’t believe “there is the full element you need to
prove an obstruction of justice case.”
“I don’t think a prosecutor would actually look at this and
say, ‘OK, we have here all the elements that would get this to a conviction,’”
Romney said.
That statement by Romney, who said he had read the entire
Mueller report, contradicts
the opinion of nearly 1,000 former federal prosecutors—both Republicans and
Democrats—who signed a letter stating that “the conduct of President Trump
described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any
other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against
indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for
obstruction of justice.”
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