The conservative House Freedom Caucus took an official position condemning Rep. Justin Amash’s (R-Mich.) call for impeaching President Trump on Monday evening, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told reporters.
“We had a good discussion and every single member, I think now based on who was there and our board meeting was probably over 30 members, every single member disagrees and strongly with the position Justin took over the week, and we’re focused on the now,” he said.
{mosads}“I mean, look, we’re focused on the fact that what the FBI did was wrong. We think that [Attorney General William] Barr’s handled himself exactly the way the American people want the attorney general to handle themselves, and he’s going to get to bottom of all this.”
While members did not discuss whether they should hold a vote to oust Amash from the powerful group he helped found, many expressed frustrations with his position. Amash said he determined the president committed “impeachable offenses” after having read special counsel Robert Mueller’s full redacted report.
“What concerns me is Justin was viewed as a leader, right, on protecting privacy rights first to First Amendment rights,” Jordan continued.
“We had a press conference like a year ago with [Sen.] Rand Paul, Sen. [Ron] Wyden all on concerns about civil liberties and how the FISA court operates and what can happen in this whole, you know, this whole area, and now Justin’s on the other side and I just don’t understand that,” he said, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said “they consider him a friend” but noted Amash has not attended the majority of Freedom Caucus meetings this year or held a meeting of the Liberty Caucus — the conservative caucus he founded and chairs — this year.
“You look at it, no one’s been a stronger voice on the potential abuses of FISA than Amash. I mean, he’s a passionate guy on it. So a lot of us agreed, and I remember we were all at a big press conference right before the [reauthorization] of FISA, which was right before all this stuff came out about all this stuff with Trump,” he told reporters.
“So to look at that and see him take the position he is, I mean, it’s shocking. And then I had no conversations with him about it. And I think that was another thing he just didn’t really talk to the group about it.”
Members of the Freedom Caucus were clear that Amash’s voice did not represent their opinions on the matter, asserting they don’t believe there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential race or obstruction of the Mueller investigation.
“Everybody’s entitled their opinion, it’s just in this case Justin is one solo voice and the rest of this group here says ‘You’re wrong,’” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) said.
Since Amash broke with the rest of the GOP in publicly coming out for impeachment on Saturday, at least one Republican, Michigan state Rep. Jim Lower, has announced their intentions to primary the five-term incumbent.