Palestinian-American Justin Amash considers 2020 run for Libertarian nomination

Michigan lawmaker Justin Amash, the first person of Palestinian descent to serve in the US Congress, said Tuesday that he is launching an exploratory committee for the 2020 Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination.

The Republican-turned-independent said on Twitter that the US was ready for new leadership. He also posted a link to a new campaign website.

“Americans are ready for practical approaches based in humility and trust of the people,” Amash said. “We’re ready for a presidency that will restore respect for our Constitution and bring people together.”

Amash announced last July in an op-ed in the Washington Post that he was leaving the Republican Party, saying he had become disenchanted with partisan politics and “frightened by what I see from it.”

Amash noted his father, a Palestinian refugee from Bethlehem, “would remind my brothers and me of the challenges he faced before coming here and how fortunate we were to be Americans.”

He drew ire from US President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans when he said the president had engaged in impeachable conduct as described in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.

Trump has called Amash a “total loser.”

Amash has long been seen as a libertarian Republican and an outspoken party contrarian. He was mentored in his earliest political runs by former representative Ron Paul, a Texas Republican and perennial GOP presidential candidate who made a name for himself as the party’s foundational libertarian.

Amash is believed to favor a lower US profile overseas. That view led him to vote against an act that would enhance the US response to emerging or potential genocides, and against a Republican-led bill that pressured the Trump administration to appoint an anti-Semitism envoy.

Amash has voted against the back pay bill for furloughed federal workers, initiated eminent domain legislation that would make it tougher to build Trump’s wall with Mexico and been lacerating in his assessment of the president’s choice for attorney general, William Barr. Amash pointed to Barr’s record during the George W. Bush administration of defending warrantless eavesdropping.