1. Bob Barr previously served as a federal prosecutor and as a US Representative, representing Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003.
73 Facts About Bob Barr
1. 2.
Bob Barr joined the Libertarian Party in 2006 and served on its National Committee.
3.
Bob Barr was the Libertarian Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 election.
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Bob Barr announced his return to the Republican party in December 2011.
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Bob Barr lost a subsequent bid in 2014 for a Congressional seat.
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Bob Barr was named president of the National Rifle Association in May 2024.
7.
Bob Barr returned to the United States for college, attending the University of Southern California.
8.
Bob Barr was elected to the position of Grand Prytanis on the fraternity's Grand Council, serving from 2013 to 2015.
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Bob Barr married his first wife while still in college.
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Bob Barr continued in graduate school, earning a master's degree in International Affairs from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in 1972.
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Bob Barr next earned his JD from Georgetown University Law Center in 1977.
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From 1971 to 1978, Bob Barr worked for the Central Intelligence Agency as an analyst of Latin American issues.
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Bob Barr practiced law and became active in the Republican Party, serving as county chair.
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Bob Barr made an unsuccessful bid for the Georgia House of Representatives in 1984.
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In 1986, Bob Barr married his third wife, Jerilyn Dobbins, who was later known as Jeri Bob Barr.
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Bob Barr's website stated in 2008 that he and Jeri have four children and six grandchildren.
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Bob Barr's office prosecuted state and local officials, members of the Medellin drug cartel, and got a perjury indictment on then-sitting Republican Congressman Pat Swindall, who ultimately served a year in prison on the charges.
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From 1990 to 1991, Bob Barr was president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
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Bob Barr sought the Republican Party nomination for US Senate in 1992, but lost the primary election to Paul Coverdell.
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The primary was very close, with Bob Barr losing by fewer than 1,600 votes in a runoff election.
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Bob Barr was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1994 as a Republican, upsetting six-term Democrat Buddy Darden, to represent Georgia's 7th congressional district in the 104th United States Congress.
22.
Bob Barr was one of 73 Republican freshmen ushered into Congress in that election.
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Bob Barr was later re-elected three times, serving from 1995 to 2003.
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Bob Barr is a staunch proponent of gun rights, and is opposed to any and all efforts to restrict the ownership of guns.
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Bob Barr was originally a strong supporter of the War on Drugs, reflecting his previous experience as an Anti-Drug Coordinator for the United States Department of Justice.
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The Bob Barr Amendment prohibited future laws that would "decrease the penalties for marijuana or other Schedule I drugs" in Washington, DC This preemptively blocked future attempts by Marijuana Policy Project to reform marijuana laws in DC via the initiative process.
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Bob Barr later reversed his position on medical marijuana, joining MPP as a lobbyist five years later.
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Bob Barr took a lead in legislative debate concerning same-sex marriage.
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Bob Barr wrote and sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act, a law enacted in 1996 which states that only marriages that are between a man and a woman can be federally recognized, and individual states may choose not to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state.
30.
Bob Barr now supports same-sex marriage and opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment, having contended that it is a violation of states' rights.
31.
Bob Barr voted for the first USA PATRIOT Act, but only after his amendments adding "sunset clauses" were added to the final bill.
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Bob Barr played a similar role during the debate over Bill Clinton's Comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Act of 1995, crafting pro-civil liberties amendments to the original text.
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Bob Barr has since called for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, leaving no permanent military bases.
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Bob Barr is best known for his role as one of the House managers during President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.
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In November 1997, Bob Barr first introduced a resolution directing the House Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment inquiry against Clinton, with this resolution coming months before the Monica Lewinsky scandal came to light.
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Foremost among the concerns Bob Barr cited at the time was apparent obstruction of Justice Department investigations into Clinton campaign fundraising from foreign sources, chiefly the People's Republic of China.
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Bob Barr argued that Clinton had been "systematically operating outside the bounds" of the law.
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Bob Barr accused Clinton of "systematic abuse of office", alleging campaign finance law violations and obstruction of congressional investigations.
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Eighteen other Republican members of the House of Representatives joined Bob Barr in signing on to the resolution as co-sponsors.
40.
Investigators reported that Bob Barr then "invoked a legal privilege from his 1985 divorce proceeding so he could refuse to answer questions on whether he'd cheated on his second wife with the woman who is his third".
41.
Since leaving Congress in 2003, Bob Barr has become a vocal opponent of the Patriot Act and has stated that he voted for it reluctantly and regrets voting for it, only agreeing because the Bush administration promised not to attempt to expand the granted powers or use them for non-terrorism purposes, and the administration agreed to report to Congress on their usage.
42.
Bob Barr says that the Bush administration promptly ignored these three promises given to Congress and has used the powers granted from the Patriot Act to further erode due process of law even in matters unrelated to terrorism.
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Bob Barr sat on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association of America from 2001 to 2007.
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Bob Barr became president of the group in May 2024.
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Bob Barr is a commentator on political and social issues and is chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation's '21st Century Center for Privacy and Freedom'.
46.
In January 2006, to emphasize the bipartisan nature of the event, Bob Barr planned on introducing Al Gore at a speech co-sponsored by the Liberty Coalition and the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy to address what they called the "NSA Spying Scandal", in which Gore compared warrantless wiretapping to the FBI's illegal COINTELPRO project surveilling, discrediting and disrupting Martin Luther King Jr.
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On December 12,2006, Bob Barr became a regional representative on the Libertarian National Committee, representing the Party's Southeast Region.
48.
Bob Barr has been careful to state that he isn't pro-drug, but rather against government intrusion.
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Bob Barr is a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee.
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Bob Barr is chairman of the board of directors of Liberty Guard, an IRS 5014 organization, which states its mission is to protect and defend individual liberty.
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Bob Barr is a supporter of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
52.
Bob Barr appeared in the mock documentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
53.
Bob Barr wrote The Meaning of Is: The Squandered Impeachment and Wasted Legacy of William Jefferson Clinton.
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Bob Barr briefly wrote a regular column for Creative Loafing, an alternative weekly newspaper serving the Atlanta metropolitan area.
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Bob Barr has said that he plans to write a book with that title.
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In 2008, in an Op-Ed article published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bob Barr lambasted the new policy of Boston, Massachusetts, police to allow warrantless search for firearms in teenagers' homes.
57.
On March 7,2009, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced that Bob Barr would be a weekly columnist for the paper.
58.
In early 2008, rumors circulated that Bob Barr was considering a presidential run under the Libertarian Party banner.
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Bob Barr's announcement came a mere ten days before the start of the Libertarian Party Convention, where delegates select the presidential candidate.
60.
On May 25,2008, Bob Barr became the 2008 Libertarian presidential nominee after six rounds of voting at the 2008 Libertarian convention.
61.
Bob Barr beat Mary Ruwart in the final round of voting, with 324 delegates to Ruwart's 276, with 26 none-of-the-above votes.
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Bob Barr had received the endorsement of Wayne Allyn Root, one of his rivals for the nomination, after Root was eliminated following the fifth round of balloting.
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Bob Barr, in turn, endorsed Root for the party's vice presidential nomination, which he received.
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On June 4,2008, Bob Barr invited the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, John McCain, and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to weekly presidential debates through an official press release.
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Bob Barr repeatedly rejected this assertion as scapegoating, responding that small-government Republicans would not vote for McCain anyway, nor would civil liberties advocates vote for Obama.
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On September 17,2008, Bob Barr filed suit in Texas to remove both McCain and Obama from the ballot.
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Bob Barr had expressed interest in running for Congress again as a Republican in 2012, challenging incumbent Republican Tom Graves in Georgia's 14th district.
68.
The newly created district included Floyd and Paulding counties, which were part of the territory Bob Barr represented in his first congressional stint.
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Bob Barr has lived in Smyrna, in Cobb County, for many years, but told several friends he planned to move to Paulding County in order to challenge Graves.
70.
Bob Barr held a news conference on March 28,2013, at Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, Georgia, where he announced his upcoming run for his old congressional seat, the 11th.
71.
Bob Barr was vying to become the first Georgia Republican to return to the US House after a gap in service.
72.
Bob Barr lost the runoff to Loudermilk by a nearly 2:1 margin.
73.
On May 20,2024, Bob Barr was elected by the National Rifle Association Board of Directors as NRA President.