- The Washington Times - Monday, May 20, 2019

The conservative House Freedom Caucus has officially condemned comments by one of its members calling for President Trump’s impeachment.

Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, told reporters Monday evening that the Caucus had taken an official stand against weekend remarks by Rep. Justin Amash, Michigan Republican.

“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 strongly with the position Justin took over the week,” he said, according to The Hill.

According to that Hill report, members did not say whether they would hold a vote to oust Mr. Amash, who surprised Capitol Hill over the weekend by saying that, based on his complete reading of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, he thinks Mr. Trump had committed “impeachable offenses.”

“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,’” said Rep. Paul Gosar, Arizona Republican.

Mr. Amash, a libertarian-leaning conservative, had been a strong voice against some of the investigative procedures the FBI and federal courts had used against Mr. Trump, which, Mr. Jordan said, made his defection all the more puzzling.

“What concerns me is Justin was viewed as a leader on protecting privacy rights first to First Amendment rights,” Mr. Jordan said. “We had a press conference like a year ago with Rand Paul, Sen. [Ron] Wyden all on concerns about civil liberties and how the FISA court operates and what can happen … and now Justin’s on the other side and I just don’t understand that.”

Added Rep. Warren Davidson, Ohio Republican: “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 … so to look at that and see him take the position he is, I mean, it’s shocking.”

Mr. Davidson added that Mr. Amash hadn’t provided any warning to his colleagues in the Freedom Caucus, which miffed members further.

“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,” he said.

• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.

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