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Saying that "modern politics is trapped in a partisan death spiral," Rep. Justin Amash, the only Republican in Congress who has accused President Trump of impeachable conduct, is quitting the GOP.

Amash, a fifth-term congressman representing Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, chose Independence Day to disclose his decision.

"Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party," Amash a Washington Post op-ed dated July 4.

The 39-year-old, whose father was a Palestinian refugee, wrote that he supported Republican candidates throughout his early adult life and was elected as a Republican.

"In recent years, though, I've become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it," he wrote. "The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions."

There was no direct mention of President Trump in Amash's self-styled declaration of independence. But the representative, a lawyer trained at the University of Michigan, has been an outspoken critic of Trump.

"President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct," Amash wrote in May in a series of tweets describing his principal conclusions after reading special counsel Robert Mueller's on the investigation of Trump's campaign and administration.

In June, Amash quit the conservative , of which he was a founding member.

Amash did not say whether he would caucus with Democrats or Republicans, and he did not declare an affiliation with any other party.

He ended his op-ed with a call for others to join him in rejecting partisan loyalties.

"I'm asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it," he wrote. "If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it."

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