The House and Senate Republicans have decided to give up their half of the Congress in support of Donald Trump. Why? Republicans are terrified of a further far-right primary challenger and losing their powerful jobs. Unfortunately, they do not understand that once POTUS vacuums up the power that comes with their jobs, he will never return it.
Only one Republican has had the spine to stand up to Trump and call for impeachment. House Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) fully got that once Republicans give up their jobs, they are already gone forever.
Donald Trump started off the day with a Twitter storm attacking Amash. Already, rumors abound that he will have a far-right opponent in his next election. The representative noted that few people in the Capitol had even read Mueller’s report. He fought back point-by-point in tweets.
Amash began with the underlying crimes argument:
‘1. They say there were no underlying crimes.’
Having read the report, he knew there were “many crimes:”
‘People who say there were no underlying crimes and therefore the president could not have intended to illegally obstruct the investigation — and therefore cannot be impeached — are resting their argument on several falsehoods:’
In the next point, Amash pointed to the claim of no “underlying crime:”
‘2. They say obstruction of justice requires an underlying crime.’
Amash argued there were “many crimes:”
‘In fact, there were many crimes revealed by the investigation, some of which were charged, and some of which were not but are nonetheless described in Mueller’s report.’
The representative went on to explain why there was no need for an underlying crime:
‘In fact, obstruction of justice does not require the prosecution of an underlying crime, and there is a logical reason for that. Prosecutors might not charge a crime precisely *because* obstruction of justice denied them timely access to evidence that could lead to a prosecution.’
Amash continued:
‘If an underlying crime were required, then prosecutors could charge obstruction of justice only if it were unsuccessful in completely obstructing the investigation. This would make no sense.’
The Michigan representative pointed to the notion that a president could not be investigated:
‘3. They imply the president should be permitted to use any means to end what he claims to be a frivolous investigation, no matter how unreasonable his claim.’
Amash added his response:
‘In fact, the president could not have known whether every single person Mueller investigated did or did not commit any crimes.’
Then, the representative went on to the point of “high crimes and misdemeanors:”
‘4. They imply “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” requires charges of a statutory crime or misdemeanor.’
He responded, noting how wrong their idea was:
‘In fact, “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not defined in the Constitution and does not require corresponding statutory charges. The context implies conduct that violates the public trust—and that view is echoed by the Framers of the Constitution and early American scholars.’
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