Meet Mark Amodei, The First House Republican To Support Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Here's a video from CBS Miami summarizing Mark Amodei's support of the impeachment inquiry:

To note, Amodei says he does not want Trump impeached, necessarily, but he is siding with Dems in supporting the impeachment inquiry and investigation into Trump's Ukraine call - despite the entire, unredacted transcript being released already.

Here's an excerpt from Amodei's official statement explaining why he supports the Trump impeachment inquiry:

 “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,” said Congressman Amodei.

 

 “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.’”

 

 “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. In no way, shape, or form, did I indicate support for impeachment. 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.

The Nevada Independent has more details on Amodei's stance on the Trump impeachment inquiry:

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.

“Let’s put it through the process and see what happens,” Amodei, the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, said on a call Friday with reporters, adding that he believes Congress is justified to look into the matter.

“I’m a big fan of oversight, so let’s let the committees get to work and see where it goes,” he added.  (An audio recording of the call has been posted below.)

“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,” he continued. “If it turns out that it’s something along those lines, then there’s a problem.”

Amodei issued a statement after the call underscoring his support for the process moving forward and dispelling any impression that he currently backs voting to impeach the president.

“In no way, shape, or form, did I indicate support for impeachment,” Amodei said of the call.

He added that his position mirrors that of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who told  KTVN Channel 2 on Thursday that the investigation should progress before making any conclusion.

“I think from all of that information, we have to follow the facts and figure out what happened here,” she said.

On the call, Amodei said he read the summary and whistleblower complaint concerning a phone call in July in which Trump seemed to ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate potential political rival former Vice President Joe Biden. The call came days before Trump had held back military funding for Ukraine, which has raised concerns over whether he was using the funding as leverage. Trump has said that he acted properly.

Amodei declined to say whether he believes Trump committed an impeachable offense, though he noted that his comments in the call were regrettable.