{"id":1310584,"date":"2019-05-22T22:52:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T04:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/polman-column-meet-the-conservative-republican-whos-putting-country-over-party\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T22:52:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T04:52:00","slug":"polman-column-meet-the-conservative-republican-whos-putting-country-over-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/polman-column-meet-the-conservative-republican-whos-putting-country-over-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Polman column: Meet the conservative Republican who\u2019s putting country over party"},"content":{"rendered":"
Dick Polman<\/strong>
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Justin Amash, a rare Republican congressman who refuses to genuflect at Donald Trump\u2019s feet, has been taking heat lately for daring to speak his mind. But bless his heart, he couldn\u2019t care less.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Trump called him \u201ca loser.\u201d (The \u201closer\u201d won re-election last year by 10 points, bucking the blue wave.) House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy derided Amash as an attention junkie who has \u201cnever supported the president.\u201d (Amash, since January, has voted with Trump 92 percent of the time.) And Trump mouthpiece Lou Dobbs said that Amash should be thrown out of the GOP\u2019s conservative House Freedom Caucus. (Amash, who was elected in the 2010 tea party wave, co-founded the House Freedom Caucus.)<\/p>\n

All this, because Amash had the temerity to actually read the entire Mueller report and to publicly state the obvious, that it \u201creveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold of impeachment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granted, Amash is a Republican outlier; the odds are approximately zero that he will inspire his willfully deaf and dumb colleagues to put country over party. Nevertheless, the Michigan congressman is a potential nightmare for Trump in 2020, writing on Twitter over the weekend that Trump \u201chas engaged in impeachable conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen loyalty to a political party or to an individual trumps loyalty to the Constitution, the Rule of Law \u2014 the foundation of liberty \u2014 crumbles,\u201d Amash wrote. \u201cAmerica\u2019s institutions depend on officials to uphold both the rules and spirit of our constitutional system even when to do so is personally inconvenient or yields a politically unfavorable outcome. Our Constitution is brilliant and awesome; it deserves a government to match it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Trump and his toadies hurled their abuse, Amash didn\u2019t cower like a scalded puppy. Instead, he doubled down, noting that Mueller\u2019s investigation revealed \u201cmany crimes\u201d and that obstruction of justice doesn\u2019t require an underlying crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey imply that \u2018high crimes and misdemeanors\u2019 requires charges of a statutory crime or misdemeanor,\u201d Amash wrote of Trump\u2019s defenders. \u201cIn fact, \u2018high crimes and misdemeanors\u2019 is not defined in the Constitution and does not require corresponding statutory charges. The context implies conduct that violates the public trust \u2014 and that view is echoed by the Framers of the Constitution and early American scholars.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCarthy, the GOP House leader, told Fox News on Sunday that Amash should be ignored because \u201che\u2019s not a criminal attorney.\u201d Nevertheless, Amash\u2019s take on the Mueller report mirrors the view of 916 federal criminal attorneys \u2014 from Republican and Democratic administrations \u2014 who have signed a bipartisan letter stating that Trump\u2019s actions would \u201cresult in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice\u201d were he not president.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming,\u201d the letter states.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s arguably most noteworthy about Amash is his potential role as a spoiler in 2020. A committed small-government libertarian, he hasn\u2019t ruled out challenging Trump by running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket. He could provide a home for conservatives who are sickened by Trump\u2019s governmental corruption and protectionist nationalism.<\/p>\n

Their numbers may be small, but here\u2019s what matters: Amash is based in Michigan, a state that tilted to Trump in 2016 by a mere 10,704 votes out of 4.5 million cast. His statewide approval rating has reportedly dropped 18 points since he took office, and he can ill afford to lose those 16 electoral votes. If the Democrats were to nominate someone capable of carrying normally blue Michigan (i.e., virtually anyone), then Amash, as a third-party draw for disaffected conservatives, could clinch that win.<\/p>\n

All of which explains why House Republicans are hesitant to oust Amash from their ranks, despite his defiant stance on impeachment. As Trump\u2019s protectors, they recognize the political peril of banishment. And as Lyndon B. Johnson used to say, it\u2019s always better to have a dog inside the tent peeing out, than outside the tent peeing in.<\/p>\n

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at WHYY in Philadelphia and a \u201cWriter in Residence\u201d at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dick Polman Justin Amash, a rare Republican congressman who refuses to genuflect at Donald Trump\u2019s feet, has been taking heat lately for daring to speak his mind. But bless his heart, he couldn\u2019t care less. On Sunday, Trump called him \u201ca loser.\u201d (The \u201closer\u201d won re-election last year by 10 points, bucking the blue wave.) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1310584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 21:32:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}