Trump backs primary challenger to Michigan Republican who voted to impeach

[November 16, 2021]    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday endorsed a Republican challenger to Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan, who was one of the 10 House of Representatives Republicans to vote to impeach Trump earlier this year.

President Donald Trump pauses as he announces his decision that the United States will withdraw from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Trump said in a statement he was backing John Gibbs, a software engineer who was a housing official in Trump's administration, over Meijer.

Trump has now endorsed six challengers to Republican incumbents who joined Democrats efforts to boot him from office on a charge he incited the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 and tried to reverse Trump's election defeat to Joe Biden.

One of them, Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, has already bowed out of his race.

Meijer, a freshman member of Congress from Grand Rapids, Michigan, in January said he was voting to impeach Trump with a heavy heart but that "he bears responsibility for inciting the violent acts of insurrection."

While Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives, the Senate acquitted him.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

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