One of the most important aspects of Rep. Justin Amash’s (R-Mich.) support for Donald Trump’s impeachment is also the most basic: the Republican congressman read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, saw the scope of the president’s wrongdoing, and drew a fairly obvious conclusion based on the document’s findings.
For his trouble, Amash has been slammed by his party and its leaders, abandoned by donors, and confronted with intra-party rivals who are eager to challenge him in a 2020 primary.
The Washington Post reported yesterday on one of the Republicans who hopes to replace Amash on Capitol Hill.
Two Republicans have filed to run against him in the primary; one of them, state Rep. Jim Lower, told The Washington Post that he raised $60,000 since Amash’s impeachment tweets. The wealthy DeVos family, a force in western Michigan and supporters of Amash’s previous campaigns, said through a spokesman last week that they would support another Republican for the 3rd Congressional District seat; Lower said he’d been in touch with the family.
In an interview, Lower said he had not read Mueller’s report but agreed with the assessment of most Republicans that it ended questions about Trump’s conduct.
It’s that last part that stands out for me.
The Republican state representative hasn’t read the Mueller report, but he’s confident that Trump’s partisan allies must be right about the document’s findings.
That’s problematic, of course, not just because it’s evidence of laziness, but also because some of the White House’s allied Republicans — the ones Amash’s rival is counting on to assess the document for him — haven’t read the Mueller report, either.
Indeed, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) recently conceded during a congressional hearing that he hadn’t gotten around to reading the report, despite his official responsibilities.
Donald Trump, who’s never expressed much of an interest in the written word, also conceded last month that he hadn’t read the Mueller report, either.
Now state Rep. Jim Lower wants to run against Justin Amash in a GOP primary because of Amash’s assessment of the Mueller report, which Lower is certain is wrong, despite not having read the document himself.
There’s obviously a deep partisan divide when it comes to gauging the president’s alleged misdeeds, but what if the fight over Trump’s fate is less about party and more about those who’ve bothered to read the Mueller report and those who haven’t?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."