GOP gadlfy Justin Amash and Donald Trump Jr. got into a Twitter slapfight Thursday morning after the president's son teased a campaign appearance for Amash's primary challenger.
The spat stemmed from Amash becoming the first elected Republican to call for President Donald Trump's impeachment, a dispute that resulted in the Michigan Republican stepping down from the uber-conservative House Freedom Caucus earlier this week.
Now Amash faces a primary challenge back home, where the president himself has considered stepping in to thwart Amash, and where a poll this week found the incumbent down by 16 points. Enter Don Jr., who tweeted out the poll Thursday.
“See you soon Justin... I hear Michigan is beautiful during primary season,” he added. Trump Jr. has become a prolific presence on the campaign trail, both for his father and for a slew of GOP candidates in the lead-up to last year's midterm elections.
But Amash on Thursday shot back within a matter of hours at the presidential son, using Trump Jr.'s own words against him.
“If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer,” Amash wrote. Those sentiments were expressed by Trump Jr. in an email in 2016 regarding the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting where top Trump campaign officials were promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. The meeting ensnared Trump Jr. in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
For a period of time, there was intense speculation that Trump Jr. might be charged for helping set up the meeting, which was also attended by Trump’s son-in-law and now White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Mueller’s report confirmed that he weighed charges stemming from that meeting. But ultimately the special counsel concluded that Trump Jr. was not sufficiently aware of campaign laws barring contributions from foreign nationals in order to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the president's son knew that what he was doing was illegal.Trump Jr. found himself in hot water again recently, appearing back on Capitol Hill in response to a subpoena from the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee to follow up on previous testimony to the panel.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine