I don’t think I’d heard anyone in the mainstream media (or anywhere else) mention Justin Amash’s name for several years until he called for the impeachment of President Trump. Suddenly, Amash was useful to the left and therefore relevant, sort of. Suddenly, the impeach Trump movement was “bipartisan.”
John has shown that Amash’s arguments for impeaching Trump are nonsensical. But Amash’s arguments don’t matter. It’s the fact that he’s a Republican that has made him seem relevant.
Except that he’s really not. House Democrats will decide whether to impeach without regard to what Rep. Amash thinks. If they decide to go for it, Amash’s vote won’t be decisive. If they impeach Trump, no one in the Senate will be influenced by Amash, who commands little respect among GOP Senators (or among GOP House members, for that matter).
Why did Amash decide to advocate the impeachment of Trump? Shane Trejo suggests that the motive is financial. He notes that Amash “has significant business interests in China that may be harmed by Trump’s ‘America First’ trade policies.”
In Amash’s financial disclosure forms for the year of 2015, he was shown as receiving up to $1 million in annual income due to his ownership stake in Michigan Industrial Tools (MIT). MIT is the parent company of Tekton Tools, Amash’s family business, that benefits directly from Chinese manufacturing.
An article from MLive in 2010 exposed Amash as being the co-owner of Dynamic Source International (DSI), a Chinese company that was once an MIT supplier.
I don’t discount the possibility of a financial angle. However, Amash is enough of a flake and enough of a NeverTrumper to endorse impeachment without any financial motivation.
Amash is a hard core libertarian of the Ron Paul variety. Earlier this year, he did not rule out running for president in 2020 as the Libertarian Party candidate.
Amash is a Palestinian-American. He routinely votes against Israel’s interests. For example, he voted against additional funding for Israel’s anti-missile system, Iron Dome, during the 2014 Gaza war. He even voted against a bill to set a 90-day deadline for President Donald Trump to fill the position of anti-Semitism monitor. Apparently, the bill would have passed unanimously but for Amash’s opposition.
Amash has bucked his Party on other issues, as well. He voted against a back pay bill for furloughed federal workers and initiated eminent domain legislation that would make it tougher to build Trump’s border wall.
As an uncompromising libertarian and strong opponent of Trump’s Israel policy, Amash has reason to be dead set against the president. As a potential candidate for Trump’s job, he has reason to want to see the president ousted. As a flake and an iconoclast, impeaching the president without probable cause to believe he has committed any crime is just the sort of thing that might appeal to Amash.
If financial considerations entered into Amash’s decision, they may have been only the icing on the cake.
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