Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) on Tuesday once again attacked Attorney General William Barr’s handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on now-debunked collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia, claiming that the nation’s chief legal officer “deliberately misrepresented” its contents.
Amash rocketed into Resistance folk-hero status earlier this month after becoming the first congressional Republican to accuse President Trump of “impeachable” offenses based on Mueller’s report on social media. In the same Twitter thread, the libertarian-leaning lawmaker also accused Barr of misrepresenting the special counsel’s findings. Mueller found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election, and further, Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined that the president did not obstruct justice based on the report.
Amash aimed his critique directly at Barr shortly after noon Tuesday, one day after Memorial Day.
“Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented key aspects of Mueller’s report and decisions in the investigation, which has helped further the president’s false narrative about the investigation,” Amash wrote on social media, then accused Barr of crafting a letter which “selectively quotes and summarizes points in Mueller’s report in misleading ways.”
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1133410120988332032
Amash later pointed out that Mueller sent a letter to Barr, stating that the attorney general’s summary of his findings “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of his report. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations,” Amash tweeted, citing Mueller’s letter sent March 27 to Barr.
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1133410126969430016
The Michigan congressman then expanded on the purported “false narrative” that President Trump has attempted to disseminate regarding the Mueller report, claiming that Barr played a role in the findings’ misrepresentations. “Barr has so far successfully used his position to sell the president’s false narrative to the American people. This will continue if those who have read the report do not start pushing back on his misrepresentations and share the truth,” he concluded.
https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1133410145449467904
Tuesday’s tweetstorm comes as Amash continues to face fierce blowback from top Republicans over his remarks. Michigan State Rep. Jim Lower (R) recently announced that he will mount a primary challenge to the congressman, saying his remarks on impeachment “show how out of touch he is with the truth and how out of touch he is with people he represents.”
President Trump responded to Amash’s statements, calling him a “loser” and a “total lightweight” in search of media attention.
The House Freedom Caucus has also voted to condemn Amash, one of the group’s founding members, for his statements.
“It was every single person who totally disagrees with what he says,” House Oversight Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-OH) said of the vote. “What concerns me is Justin was viewed as a leader, right, on protecting privacy rights first to First Amendment rights.”