The nation should thank Justin Amash.

[Nitram]

from Eugne Robinson's column in this morning's Washington Post.

Justin Amash finally said out loud what many other Republicans know but will only whisper: “President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment.” Amash’s party may never forgive him. His nation ought to thank him...Amash wrote in a series of tweets that he reached his conclusion “only after having read Mueller’s redacted report carefully and completely, having read or watched pertinent statements and testimony, and having discussed this matter with my staff, who thoroughly reviewed materials and provided me with further analysis.”

That sounds like the sort of thing we pay elected officials and their staff members to do. But Amash wrote that few of his colleagues “even read Mueller’s report; their minds were made up based on partisan affiliation.”

That’s actually a key point. Anyone who reads the 448-page report can see, as Amash concludes, that Attorney General William P. Barr — in his four-page summary, his congressional testimony and other statements — “intended to mislead the public” about Mueller’s findings. Barr apparently “hopes people will not notice” his deception, Amash said . Busted

...In the Mueller report, Amash finds “multiple examples of conduct satisfying all the elements of obstruction of justice.” Impeachment, Amash noted, “does not even require probable cause that a crime .?.?. has been committed,” but simply that an official “has engaged in careless, abusive, corrupt, or otherwise dishonorable conduct.” Trump does all of the above, all of the time

...But here is a line from Amash’s tweetstorm that Democrats should reflect on: “While impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances, the risk we face in an environment of extreme partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter misconduct.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-may-never-forgive-justin-amash-the-nation-should-thank-him/2019/05/20/5cd89f30-7b3f-11e9-a5b3-34f3edf1351e_story.html?utm_term=.490b91814200