LawFuel – Former U.S. attorney and 4-term Congressman Bob Barr is expected to announce his candidacy for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination this Saturday, Apr. 5, writes George Dance.
A U.S. attorney appointed by Ronald Reagan, Bob Barr won his Georgia seat in the 1994 “Contract with America” campaign, unseating a 6-term Democrat. He first came to national attention as a manager in the 1998 impeachment of Bill Clinton. (Barr was the first Republican to move Clinton’s impeachmet, in Nov. 1997.)
Says Wikipedia: “Barr was one of the most conservative members of the House. However, he displayed a slight libertarian streak, and was considered one of the strongest supporters of civil liberties among House Republicans. He only voted for the Patriot Act after his amendments adding “sunset clauses” were added to the final bill. Barr had played a similar role in the debate Clinton’s Comprehensive Aniterrorism Act of 1995, crafting pro-civil liberties amendments to the original text.”
Since losing his House seat after his district was jerrymandered in 2002, Barr has become a vocal opponent of the Patriot Act and other civil-liberties abuses of the Bush administration. In Mar. 2007 Barr co-founded the American Freedom Agenda (AFA), “a coalition established to restore checks and balances and civil liberties protections under assault by the executive branch.” (Ron Paul was the first presidential candidate to sign the AFA pledge, and later that year introduced its agenda to Congress as H.R. 3835, the “American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007”.)
