Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, the only Republican in Congress who has called for the impeachment of President Trump, announced Thursday that he is leaving the GOP.
“Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party,” Amash wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, without mentioning the president by name.
“No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us,” the five-term lawmaker, a staunch libertarian, continued.
“I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it. If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it.”
Last month, Amash stepped down from the conservative House Freedom Caucus after arguing that Trump had committed impeachable offenses based on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
“The Republican Party, I believed, stood for limited government, economic freedom and individual liberty — principles that had made the American Dream possible for my family,” he wrote in the op-ed.
“In recent years, though, I’ve become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it. The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions.”
Amash has incurred the wrath of GOP leaders, as well as the president, who blasted him in May.
“I’ve known him and he’s been against Trump from the beginning,” the president told reporters when asked about Amash’s comments regarding impeachment.
“He probably wants to run for some other office,” Trump said. “I don’t think he’ll do very well. He’s been a loser for a long time. Rarely votes for Republicans, and personally, I think he’s not much.”
Amash has refused to rule out a potential presidential bid, telling CNN earlier this year that he never stops thinking about such possibilities “because there is a big problem with the current two-party system we have, and someone has to shake it up.”
“Now, is it possible for anyone to shake it up and make a difference?” he asked in March. “I don’t know.”
Amash — who didn’t address his political plans in the op-ed — called for people to reject both parties because, he said, a majority don’t feel adequately represented by Republicans or Democrats.
“Most Americans are not rigidly partisan and do not feel well represented by either of the two major parties,” he wrote. “Preserving liberty means telling the Republican Party and the Democratic Party that we’ll no longer let them play their partisan game at our expense.”
