GOP Congressman Justin Amash Gets Standing Ovation At First Public Event Since Calling For Trump's Impeachment

GOP Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) received a standing ovation at a town hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Tuesday evening after he called for Congress to hold President Donald Trump accountable for his "misconduct."

Earlier this month, Amash became the first Republican to publicly call for Trump's impeachment. In a lengthy Twitter thread shared on May 18, the GOP lawmaker concluded that — after having read special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page redacted report — "Trump had engaged in impeachable conduct" and "Attorney General [William Barr] has deliberately misrepresented Mueller's report."

During his first town hall since issuing those statements, Amash doubled down on his calls for impeachment proceedings to be launched against Trump and criticized House Republican leadership for failing to hold the president accountable.

"I read the Mueller report. I'm sure he didn't read it," Amash said of House Minority Leader [Kevin] McCarthy (R-Cali.), who he labeled the "so-called leader." "He resorted to ad hominem attacks; that's the kind of 'leadership' we now have in Congress."

McCarthy previously dismissed Amash as someone "just looking for attention" and accused him of being "out of step with America" in an interview with Fox News.

"I'm confident that if you read volume two [of the Mueller report], you will be appalled at much of the conduct. And I was appalled by it. And that's why I stated what I stated. That's why I came to that conclusion," the Michigan Republican explained. "We can't let conduct like that go unchecked."

"Congress has a duty to keep the president in check, and it's a difficult process… Nonetheless, we have a job to do and I think we owe it to the American people to represent them," he added.

Despite backlash from Trump, who has called Amash a "loser" and "total lightweight" over his impeachment remarks, the 39-year-old GOP congressman has continued to criticize the president's actions on multiple occasions in recent weeks.

Amash called Trump "irresponsible" after the president threatened to stop working towards a bipartisan infrastructure deal until congressional Democrats drop their probes into him in the Rose Garden last Wednesday.

In a recent interview with CNN, Amash revealed that a few of his Republican colleagues have privately sympathized with his Trump impeachment remarks. "There are people who are still reviewing [the Mueller report]," he said. "I've had people who, after I made my tweets said, 'Boy, they'd better review it more carefully now and they hadn't really gone through it before.'"

Republican Mitt Romney praised the congressman's comments as "courageous," but noted that he had reached a different conclusion with regards to impeachment after reading Mueller's report. "My own view is that Justin Amash has reached a different conclusion than I have," Romney said. "I respect him. I think it's a courageous statement. But I believe to make a case for obstruction of justice, you just don't have the elements that are evidenced in this document."