Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), Nevada’s only GOP congressman, does not support impeachment despite false claims from the media and the left that he does, his office clarified in a statement late Friday night.
He does, however, support what both the White House and all members of Congress in both the House and Senate have said they support, which is a thorough vetting of the supposed “whistleblower” complaint that led to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opening a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Amodei’s position is in actuality unremarkable and not different from any other Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
It all started earlier Friday when Amodei held a 40-minute-long phone call with reporters explaining his positions on the issue, a phone call that led to an article by Humberto Sanchez in the Nevada independent.
The opening sentence of Sanchez’s article states: “Rep. Mark Amodei supports the House’s inquiry into whether President Donald Trump should be impeached, but is withholding judgment on whether Trump has crossed the legal line.”
The article then quotes Amodei from the call with reporters talking about the process.
“Let’s put it through the process and see what happens,” Amodei said.
“I’m a big fan of oversight, so let’s let the committees get to work and see where it goes,” Amodei added.
“Using government agencies to, if it’s proven, to put your finger on the scale of an election, I don’t think that’s right,” Amodei also said. “If it turns out that it’s something along those lines, then there’s a problem.”
The Nevada Independent also published audio of the congressman’s full nearly-40-minute phone call, which readers of the outlet can listen to.
But what happened next is particularly interesting, and evidence of fake news being spread in an effort by the establishment media and hard leftist groups to twist what members of Congress are saying in order to try to take down the president.
Several people in the national establishment media, including the New York Times, MSNBC, and others–as well as top leftist groups–twisted Amodei’s essentially unremarkable words into somehow meaning the first Republican had turned on Trump in the House to support impeachment.
Here are several media figures and outlets who twisted the congressman’s words to attempt to spell doom for Trump:
Here are several top leftists who warped what Amodei said to fit their narrative:
All the fake news rushing to mischaracterize Amodei’s statements as somehow being supportive of impeaching Trump forced the congressman to issue a statement Friday evening further clarifying his remarks.
Amodei said in the statement:
I held a 40 minute telephone press conference today with Nevada media outlets to respond to their questions about the impeachment inquiry made by Speaker Pelosi earlier this week. Following that call, Nevada Independent reporter Humberto Sanchez released an article. The first paragraph of Mr. Sanchez’s article reads: ‘Rep. Mark Amodei supports the House’s inquiry into whether President Donald Trump should be impeached, but is withholding judgment on whether Trump has crossed the legal line.’
Amodei explained further in the statement that the Nevada Independent‘s reporting and characterization of his remarks is only accurate in the sense that he backs what both chambers of Congress supported unanimously–something the White House also supports–which was the resolution that called for the whistleblower complaint to be transmitted to the Intelligence Committee:
This is absolutely an accurate statement in the sense that the House and Senate have both unanimously supported the resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the whistleblower complaint received on August 12, 2019, by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, should be transmitted immediately to the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives. It is also accurate that the White House supports this same resolution.
Amodei also made clear in his statement that he did not indicate in any way that he backs impeachment of President Trump:
In no way, shape, or form, did I indicate support for impeachment,” Amodei said. “Rather, I stressed my complete agreement with Senator Cortez-Masto’s (D-NV) statement reported to KTVN Channel 2 from yesterday which is as follows:
‘I think from all of that information, we have to follow the facts and figure out what happened here,’ Cortez-Masto said.
In other words, just like everyone else in Washington on both sides of the aisle, he wants to get the facts of what happened here–another unremarkable statement th
Amodei concluded his statemen:
Anyone who reads Mr. Sanchez’s article and thinks that somehow there is a vote to convict before the process has played out – as called for by the resolution unanimously supported by everyone concerned – is simply, individual fantasy. I now have a full appreciation of how the President feels. Have a nice weekend.
So, no, Rep. Amodei does not support impeachment despite Rachel Maddow’s and the New York Times‘ best efforts to misrepresent his comments as such. What’s more, Amodei twice this week voted with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on a resolution McCarthy offered twice–once on Wednesday and another time on Friday–expressing disapproval with the way in which Pelosi began the impeachment inquiry via press conference.
It’s hard to imagine Amodei would vote in line with the Republicans twice on this only to on a conference call with reporters on the same day as one of the votes and take a drastically different position. Chalk this one up to more fake news from a media and leftist establishment determined to try to take down President Trump by any means necessary.
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