GOP Rep. Justin Amash Greeted With Standing Ovation At Town Hall After Calling For Trump’s Impeachment

At a town hall on Tuesday, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) received a standing ovation following his calls for President Donald Trump‘s impeachment. Returning to his home state of Michigan over the Memorial Day break, Representative Amash continued to bask in the attention garnered by becoming the sole Republican to demand the president’s impeachment. While he received some backlash from a few of the event’s attendees, such as one man in a “Make America Great Again” hat, most of Amash’s constituents remained supportive of him and his actions.

Safe in the knowledge that he retained the loyalty of the voters, Amash continued in his attacks on the GOP establishment, going on to lambast the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California). Amash claimed that McCarthy wasn’t fully aware of the dangers of Trump, saying, “I read the Mueller Report. I’m sure he didn’t read it.” Amash went on to restate how damning he viewed the Mueller report as, saying, “I’m confident that if you read volume two, you will be appalled at much of the content.” McCarthy has called Amash’s recent actions “out of step with America,” and berated the Michigan representative for attempting to draw attention to himself.

Amash takes a swing at his “so-called leader,” @GOPLeader, who had accused him of seeking attention w his Trump tweets. “I read the Mueller report. I’m sure he didn’t read it. He resorted to ad hominem attacks; that’s the kind of ‘leadership’ we now have in Congress.”

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) May 28, 2019

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But, in fact, Mueller finds considerable evidence that several of Trump’s actions detailed in the report meet the elements of obstruction, and Mueller’s constitutional and prudential issues with indicting a sitting president would preclude indictment regardless of what he found.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 28, 2019

Many think that Amash’s break from the GOP establishment is, in fact, a way of garnering attention for the representative, possibly setting him up to challenge the president from the right. While Amash reassured attendees at the town hall that he wasn’t intending to hype himself up when he initially attacked the president, the representative avoided directly denying the possibility of running for president. Such a candidacy could come either in the form of a Republican primary challenge or as a bid on the Libertarian party ticket. The Libertarian Party has reportedly been aggressively attempting to recruit Amash. If the representative were to switch parties then he would become the first Libertarian representative to hold office. The Libertarian Party will hold their next convention in May 2020, at which point they will select their candidate for the presidency.