Republican faces election challenge from ‘pro-Trump’ Michigan State Rep. Jim Lower
Just two days after GOP Rep. Justin Amash declared that he believes President Donald Trump has “committed impeachable offenses,” a challenger for the primary election has stepped forward to take his seat.
On Monday, self-declared pro-Trump State Rep. Jim Lower (R-Greenville), who also describes himself as ”pro-life, pro-jobs, pro-Second Amendment, pro-family values Republican,” announced his intention to run against Amash in 2020.
“Congressman Justin Amash tweets yesterday calling for President Trump’s impeachment show how out of touch he is with the truth and how out of touch he is with people he represents,” Republican Lower said, according to the Detroit Free Press.
“He must be replaced and I am going to do it.”
Lower intends to run for Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District in 2020.
According to the New York Post, Lower had planned to announce that he would challenge Amash around July 4 but moved it up after the fifth-term congressman said that Trump met the “threshold of impeachment” in a series Twitter postings on Saturday.
Amash, first elected in 2010, said he concluded after reading Robert Mueller’s report that Trump “engaged in impeachable conduct” and that Attorney General William Barr “deliberately misrepresented” the special counsel’s findings.
Trump called Amash a “total lightweight” and a “loser” who opposes him to gain notoriety.
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. If he actually read the biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump,….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2019
….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
Amash blasted President Trump on Twitter Saturday, claiming he engaged in impeachable offenses and that partisanship is eroding the country’s constitutional system, tweeting:
“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.”
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
According to the Daily Caller, Amash, a Republican known for meticulously combing through dense policies, said he came to his conclusions only after reading special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into potential Russian election meddling and comparing it to Attorney General Bill Barr’s “principal conclusions, congressional testimony, and other statements” on Mueller’s report.
He said it is “clear that Barr intended to mislead the public.”
He has been a frequent critic of Trump and suggested in March he will not rule out running for the Libertarian Party nomination for president in 2020.
Amash also co-sponsored a resolution seeking to block the president’s emergency declaration to help build a wall across the border with Mexico.
The House Judiciary Committee decided May 8 to vote to hold Barr in contempt of Congress for not providing the committee Mueller’s full, unredacted report.
House Republicans balked at the move. House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins, for instance, criticized New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat, saying the Judiciary Committee chairman’s request would require Barr to break the law.