We were young teenagers we were on scout camp out on the woods fishing and hiking and lay in our sleeping bags looking at the stars and talking about economic and political theory when we were 12 and 13 years old. Its very unusual that without an interest in those things. His brother and i became naval aviators and the vietnam war era. I have a Rich Heritage as all of us in america, there is a mural in washington, d. C. Upon the top, a big huge mural, a father before they boarded the mayflower before they came to america. He was the elder of the mayflower pilgrims and it shows him holding the bible in multiple people on the ship, he is looking heavenward and on the floor of the ship is a musket, armor and help it. I thought this is symbolic and the reliance on god through the word of the scorcher calling for divine guidance through their prayer and even a willingness to defend themselves if necessary to protect life, liberty and their family possessions. My fourth great grandfather James Chapman thought when George Washington the entire eight years of the revolutionary war of which im very proud of my heritage. The sacrifices made for us to be able to have what we have today. Im a patriotic constitutionalist what i call myself, i believe we need to return to the heritage of her roots and stick to the constitution, stop the internal partisan bickering going on all the time, we did much better off and as a naval officer and sworn oath to defend and support the u. S. Constitution with all enemies foreign and domestic and we have enemies above our constitution and our country in congress. And just this week fortunately the house voted not to impeach which we will hear more about later on when it does not mean they will stop trying which will probably happen so to get a better view of the situation of what is going on with the threat of impeachment that are happening daily we have a man here today who will tell us about that and share information. Bob barr served as an United States attorney and appointed by president reagan from 86 90 and a member of congress from 1995 2003 and a member of the House Judiciary Committee for eight years in on the Oversight Committee for six years. He served as a cia official for certain time and a member of congress to call for clinton impeachment in the house impeachment manager in the senate trial in 1999 and presently a private practice attorney in atlanta since leaving the house. Plus use Libertarian Party nominee for the president in 2008. We would like to hear from him or ask you to give him a warm welcome, former congressman bob barr. [applause] thank you jim, very much. I always appreciate his invitations to come to freedom and speak and probably more importantly just listen and meet old friends and new friends all of whom have a deep and inviting love for liberty and are always on the front lines of defending it against those who would take it away and are legion in todays world as jim mentioned even the congress of the United States, there are those who would take freedom away in the minute and undermined it. So it is always wonderful to be up freedom fest which is one of the institutions and undertakings that stand foursquare in support of liberty. From personal standpoint, jim mentioned when he was younger with mark and 12, 13 years old he would go out camping and look up at the stars and talk about freedom and liberty in government and so forth. When i was that age i was living in peru, my dad was a Civil Engineer and we would go camping sometimes on the banks of the amazon river or in the mountains of peru and we would talk about things very different from liberty and freedom and how Government Works back in those days overseas. But growing up overseas as they did in countries as diverse as iraq and iran in peru and malaysia, various other countries, ver from a very earle gave me a profound appreciation for what we do have as american citizens. Not just at home but anywhere in the world, u. S. Passports still mean something, it means that you are a citizen of the greatest nation, the freest nation on the face of the earth, it does not mean were citizens of a perfect land, there is no perfect land, it does mean and still means and hopefully always will mean to everybody else in the world that there is Something Special about the individual who carries the passport of the United States of america and of always appreciated that and i say having growing up in societies in countries where those freedoms that so many of our fellow citizens take for granted wont exist. And that was very mindful when i took the oath of office. Jim has taken at least one in the air force but i have taken 30s to this country to support and defend the constitution of the laws both as an official with the cia many years ago then as jim mentioned, as United States attorney for the Northern District of georgia under reagan and bush one and is a member of the United States congress. I did that from january 1995 2003. But i consider that the oath is continuing, it did not and the moment that i left my job as u. S. Attorney, it did not and the moment i resigned from the cia to resume law practice and it did not in the moment i was involuntarily retired from the u. S. Congress from losing an election. I consider that is the cost and willing to pay to carry that passport as a citizen of the United States of america to get back to this country into everything that i can to ensure that those freedoms embodied in the constitution and reflected in our laws continue and defended against. I consider myself very much abiding by the oath that i took as a member of congress in georgia as standing here today as a citizen in private life. In talking about impeachment in investigations by the congress of the president in impeachment, understanding or being aware of impeachment in the procedures for impeachment is not that complex and we can talk about it a little bit and i be glad to answer questions that you might have or any questions you might a half. But what i think is more important than simply looking at the process of impeachment or the ministration of impeachment, whether it begins by an inquiry of impeachment which is the document that i filed in november of 1987 when it became clear to me and many others that president bill clinton had violated very serious provisions of the United States law that related for example to the defense and defense related technology to china or whether it had to do with serious violations of federal Campaign Laws that undercut the integrity of our electoral process. That is one way to begin an impeachment process filing an inquiry of impeachment which does not call for impeachment, it does not outline articles of impeachment, it is what i consider a responsible first step is a member of congress believes there are grounds to impeach the president because an inquiry of impeachment says it is directed that the Judiciary Committee of the house of representatives which is the committee with ultimate responsibility under the rules and procedures of the house to consider impeachment, it simply directs that the committee on the judiciary inquiry into whether or not there are proper grounds. To me, that is the responsible first step that the member of congress believes the president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors which is the criteria that i am in the constitution for impeachment of the president and by the house and thereafter upon impeachment by the house trial and if convicted by two thirds of the Senate Removal from office. There are other ways to begin in impeachment and we saw that as jim mentioned just earlier this week. A member of the house can introduce articles of impeachment directly not calling for an inquiry into whether or not grounds exist for throwing a piece of paper into the house and saying, lets impeach, who cares about whether or not theres an inquiry, who cares if theres evidence to support taking such a dramatic step, we dont like what the president is doing, we dont like what he is saying or how he behaves, therefore lets skip over those technicalities and move directly to impeachment, that occurred earlier this week and representative al green from texas introduced maybe the third or the fourth time in his recent tenure in the house of representatives articles of impeachment. We will talk in a minute about those articles of impeachment as opposed to the articles of impeachment which were initiated and voted out by the Judiciary Committee in december of 1998 with regard to president clinton and voted to articles of impeachment on december 19 of 1998. That process in those documents, if you go back and look that is relating to the impeachment of William Jefferson clinton in 1998 read very differently than the articles of impeachment thrown on the floor of the house by representative al green a few days ago. There was a major difference between going through a professional legitimate process of inquiring into evidence and voting on something as opposed to skipping over or jumping over all of that and moving directly to impeaching a president simply because we do not like him. But even before we get into the ins and outs of the ministration of an impeachment, its important to consider in impeachment in the context of what is happening in our society in a much broader level. If we look for example at other things happening in the congress recently or in government generally or in society generally, what we see is a process that is about as alien as you can get from the process that delivered untrue deliberative processes outlined by our counters and reflect in the constitution based on something seem to be largely missing in todays world, properly educated citizen. Whether or not a constitutionally based system, a republican form of government as we have is going to work depends on the citizen knowing what is going on. Not just knowing what is going on, being educated as to those things happening in society but equipped through educational process which does not end with school and continues throughout our lives equipping us with the tools to understand and the concern of what is going on and also if you go back and read jefferson and federalist papers in the debates surrounding the constitution and the bill of rights, having educated citizen that understands not just our country and our institutions but how we arrived at that, that is the history of how Government Works. Our founders did not just come together and scribble out ideas based on what they thought they knew. They spent countless hours, days, years studying the rise and fall of civilization, the rise and fall of different forms of government and going back to migration societies, ancient greece, ancient rome, and to egypt. Mesopotamia on through what to them for the mor more modern fos of government based on rural succession and divine rights. They studied all this and understood it. They understood why governments failed and why some succeeded. And all of that was not only incorporated into her system of government in the constitutional form of government. In other words having a citizenry that understands history and understands government and understands the issues and is able to debate civilly in that process provides the underpinning for the continued success of the former government. That is success of a government that protects as the first responsibility, not natural defense but the freedom of the citizenry at home. And i think if we look at society nowadays we can largely do not see that. Those of us in the room are not the rule, were the exception. The vast majority of people in our country including a large number in my old stomping grounds that dont understand that. The dont have the education in the broad sense of education, not just how many years youve gone to school. And another thing missing that was also important to our founders and setting up the mechanisms of government including the mechanisms of one and in how we elect people and how people get into government and on the other hand trying to get rid of them if they arent working properly and if they are doing what they should. With a sense of being able to prioritize things. And by prioritization what im talking about is the notion that some things are better than other things. And what i see nowadays, correct me if you dont see this. But it comes back to impeachme impeachment, it seems we are living in a society that has taken the notion of egalitarianism, not just every person is equal but everything is equal. No one thing can be stated as better or valued higher than Something Else because if you say that this person is a winner and does a better job than this person then you are saying, a lot of people in society nowadays say these people are unequal, you cannot do that, you cant say this person got an a in this person got to see, that means this person is better than 70 else and after all everybody is equal. We see that everywhere. Not just in sports so much, education but now in government. And we see it reflected, i see it reflected also in how the congress operates and how the courts operate when it comes to implementing government polici policies, the president says i am the executor of the law, Congress Passes the law and i have the responsibility under the constitution of article two, to execute those and implement the policies. Now so long the president also consistent with the law he ought to be free to institute and implement those policies, if congress decides they dont like a president whos implementing or in the manner in which hes implementing the law passed by congress, congress in our system of government has at least two ways to change it. They can not appropriate money for what the president is doing, they can withhold funding, none of the funds appropriated under this legislation shall be used for et cetera et cetera. Or congress can use the legislative tool for great responsibilities of the congress to appropriate funds, legislate and the one that is largely forgotten, provide oversight. To make sure that the executive branch is operating within the intent of the law passed by congress. What seems to be happening nowadays, the president will make a decision in the immigration arena is one that is much in the news nowadays. In the constitution provides authority for the federal government over citizenship and the law provides the executive branch the ability to regulate immigration into our country. The president says okay in order to exercise and implement that responsibility i have to do certain things, i have to direct that those agencies undermine my authority and operate a certain way to protect our country and to implement the laws that congress has had. In the prior president s have signed. It should be fairly simple. But it is not. It is not for one reason because courts nowadays are populated by a lot of judges whose individual views of this president or a president or the executive branch different. And therefore, with the lot of the liberals do, not saying conservatives dont do the same thing, but the liberals have made this of judge shopping whether it is by their attorney general saying washington and Washington State in general or actions by other officials, they will find a judge that agrees with them philosophically on the particular issue that theyre going to court on, immigration. And they will go to court and say what the president is doing is adversely affecting our citizens and by the way, it is indirectly affecting the citizens of the whole country so therefore we are asking you, the judge not just within our federal jurisdiction or within the jurisdiction of a particular state if its attorney general of the state going into court. Which is the normal process, a federal judge has jurisdiction over the judicial district in which he or she sits. But nowadays what we have and what we are seeing here again, not based on the law, not based on history but simply based on personal views of federal judges at the District Court level primarily because they disagree with what the president is doing and called nationwide injunctions to enjoin the president from implementing a policy anywhere in the country in those cases go up the line but that takes a lot of time and the fact it is severely weakening the legitimate exercise of executive power by the president. If the president says you the courts or you the court are improperly infringing and limiting my ability to carry out my duty im sworn to carry out under the constitution to effectively and properly implement these immigration laws for example, i have to continue to do it. And i have to continue to do it whitwhile is being appealed. Otherwise, our nation will be irreparably harmed. So these are the legal battles. But then what happens is liberal members of congress or those members of congress the disagree with your ministration or disagree with what the president may be doing they say we got you, thats an impeachable offense. This court i dont mean to pick on washington but very fair to pick on washington nowadays. This judge in washington has issued an order, a judicial order. Whats more important in the world than a judicial order. I think of a lot of things but anyway they say this in the president is continuing to protect our borders and to make sure that they officials on our border are Holding People to the letter of the law. And yet the court says give me that, its an impeachable offense. They go rushing out there and start an impeachment process on that. But what is happening nowadays and what we saw earlier this week does not rise to the level of something that is as wellthoughtout as that. And it goes back to a profound lack of understanding of what impeachment is by members of the house of representatives or they just dont care and what happens is, we get a document like al green from texas introduced that is a rambling diatribe against President Trump. We dont like th the way the President Trump insult people. We dont like how he denigrates certain people. Oh we dont like the way president does this or that or the other thing. Therefore he ought to be impeached. The process similar to what is happening in other sectors of our society has become so fluent and so vague and so illdefined, so uneducated it also unprofessional that the democratic leadership in the house, and use the term loosely, the term leadership, the democratic leadership in the house is so devoid of anything that they allow this member to introduce these articles of impeachment and there is a process in the house and a member can say im introducing this as a privileged motion. There are privileged motions which means they skipped ahead of the pack and normally you introduce a piece of legislation and throw it into the hopper and against assigned a number and to the committee and then it goes down under the leadership wants to have hearings. There is a way to require a vote on a piece of legislation and you can start with a discharge petition. You introduce a piece of legislation and then you sign a discharge petition its up to the speakers and they keep it in a drawer and members sign onto that and if you can get a majority, 218 members to sign on to your discharge petition than the piece of legislation you produced goes to the floor for a vote notwithstanding that it might never have had a hearing in House Committee or been marked up by House Committee or whatnot. It does not happen very often, occasionally but not very often. But if a member says im introducing a resolution of piece of legislation, that is privileged than it can go to the floor for an immediate vote, even if nobody else has signed on to it. Its called a privileged motion. And thats what al green did earlier this week. Now, have the democratic leadership been somewhat smart, minimally smart, they would have said this privilege motion is not properly filed as a privileged motion. And therefore it will not go to the floor for an immediate vote. If the democratic leadership in the house had the ability to lead to direct its members to any extent whatsoever they would have said that, they would have perhaps hauled him assigned and had a come to jesus meeting, i know you cannot call that congress but in the Speakers Office and say we understand what your turn to do, and a lot of us may agree with you, we dont like trump or howies operating and we prefer to see somebody else, probably not mike pence with videos. But the proper way to do that that will accomplish what you want to do is to highlight these issues but with the same time provide at least a credibility for us and which by the way is consistent with history and president to file an inquiry impeachment and will send it to the Judiciary Committee and they hold hearings on it which is what happened in 1998, some might remember, back in 1998 can star was independent counsel which is a statutory position and he was serving as independent counsel and sent a report to the house in september of 1998. That report was very lengthy. The report itself was report about like that. All of the accompanying documents could fill several file drawers which of course not a single senator ever looked at. I did and a few other members of the house did but not many. That contained all the supporting and background material that showed a pattern of unlawful acts by president clinton. That was also secret by the way. Nobody can get access except city members of the house. But anyway, can star send a report to the house. Interestingly, the reason he sent the report was not because he wanted to, or said i dont like clinton so im going to send the report to the house on impeachable offenses. He was required to by the law, the law the set of the office of independent counsel requires that if the independent counsel in the course of his or her investigation urges mandated by the court uncover substantial evidence of impeachable offenses, the independent counsel is required to send that to the house which is what can star did. So it was not as if he decided im going to do this because i dont like clinton, he was required to do it. That report comes to the house in september of 1998, it goes to the Judiciary Committee, we held extensive hearings throughout the next two months in those resulted in a vote by the Judiciary Committee reporting for articles of impeachment against president clinton. They were very specific and very comprehensive and backed up by a lengthy series of hearings and documentary evidence. That supported them. It was not as if we decided we dont like bill clinton so will file impeachment. Thats the way it should be done. Unfortunately, for those of us who believe in the rule of law and a proper regard for the history of how laws are implemented in a proper regard for constitutional processes, that is not is what is happening audis. Its not just the fault of the democrats in the congress, its the fault of the american people. We have allowed Public Discourse and political activity to sink to the level where we do not demand a requisite amount of understanding, education, civility and professionalism in what we do with and of our elected officials. And what happens in, those important mechanisms such as impeachment are devalued. We saw earlier this week that a resolution passed resolution with President Trump saying about these members of congress. And we also saw i forget last week or this week, the house held bill barr, no relationship, i do know him, he and i worked together many years ago. Bill barr and wilbur ross is a Secular Congress were held in contempt by the congress because they do not give the Congress Everything that they wanted to come up with another case against the president for requiring the outrageous question of citizenship on the senses. The problem is, is this seems to have escaped the democratic leadership understanding, if you constantly allow these notions to go forward, we dont like what somebody done so will hold them in contempt. We dont like what the president has done so we will impeachment. After a while people tend to realize correctly, you dont understand what you are doing, you dont mean what you are doing, these things dont have any meaning anymore. And therefore people tend to not Pay Attention to them. They should but they dont. Its because they been devalued by cost of misuse and abuse by the congress. In the impeachment which is an extremely important tool in our constitutional structure is in danger of going down the same road. It fits into the notion, the contract in our society the anybodys idea is just as good as anybody elses. Therefore of course we dont like what ciampa said, yet we should impeach him or hold him in contempt, we dont like what the secretary of whatever, the secretary of commerce has done, they said something we dont like, they did not give us what we like so will hold them in contempt. It does not mean anything. One of the important factors when i served as president reagan and bush ones attorney, it had a great effect on the success of the efforts of my office. It was having the credibility of the public and that credibility came not from me, it came from running an office, having an office that clearly and consistently articulated a high professional standard for upholding the rule of law. If we had simply gone off and indicted people because we did not like something that they said or we indict this person for somebody that somebody else said, we would not have that credibility and it wouldve caused a lot of cases to sink and we would not be getting information from the public that was important for the running of the office so having the credibility, the confidence of the public, the voting public in particular in what you are doing and the congress and the executive branch has a great effect on the success of whatever it is that her government is doing. And when we have this we seem to have reached a point where trust in government is at an alltime low and people in washington are saying why could that be, is because of what you are doing, what you are allowing to happen. When you allow you in the leadership of particular party allow your members to go on the floor of the house and introduced species specious articles of impeachment or to move for contempt every time somebody in the ministration does something you do not like is no wonder people dont trust you and dont believe you and do not have confidence in what you are doing. Not makes it difficult for government to do what is supposed to be doing to protect liberty. And to do all of those other things the government needs to be doing not target what what they ought to be doing that theyre not but in order for the government to do the most important thing that is required to do in our system of government is in true liberty and if we have a congress that has no credibility because they have no leadership, they have no respect for the law themselves, then were allowing government to operate pretty much at his own will and its bad for us, us being people who believe in liberty and limited government. So it is not just that we might not like what the democrats are doing an auto be upset was going on in washington because we believe in liberty and understand if we have a dysfunctional government, liberty is not going to be protected so i think its important for all of us to have it from a political standpoint and is probably a nice way to statstate, the stupidity of whae democrats did, it amazes me and ive seen a lot of it. It amazes me because what they did and allowing a vote for granted it was not on articles of impeachment they vote to table the articles of impeachment and they basically gave a gift wrapped president under present to the president. So impeachment basically has come to mean nothing at least right now. Centering the president doesnt mean anything anymore. And our whole system of government suffers, most important was suffers is liberty which is what the government needs to be protected. So important that we all understand the mechanisms of government, how theyre supposed to work, how they do work in to make sure all three branches is not Just Congress that is dysfunctional, all three branches of government and may be operating in sync in the same role in hymnal so to speak and they are not right now. None of them are. And it worries me a great deal because its very difficult to rewrite the ship once it veers so far off course. But i think we have to. Thats why i appreciate mark for allowing us to chat about these important neck andisms of impeachment and various investigations going on and we do have a little bit of time for questions. How would you like people if everybody can line up. [inaudible] is impeachment the political process or is there an element of judicial review if what the impeachment is for is not a high crime or misdemeanor. For example if the democrats were to have super majorities in the future of congress and decide to impeach President Trump because they dont like his tweets, was out of political process or is there an appeal at some point saying this is not a high crime or misdemeanor this is not what the constitution provided in your opinion. There is no mechanism or history judicial review of impeachment. Its similar to other powers in the constitution for example the president has authority to pardon individuals for federal criminal offenses and unreviewable. This is in the sense you are asking impeachment is a political process and not be reviewed by the court and should not be. If the court tried to get involved they would be overstepping their bounds. I have a theory ive been working on and let me express what do you think. I think that the democrats know full well that they cannot impeach the president because the impeachment process has to go through the senate and the senate is controlled by republicans so it is a dead issue. I think the purpose of all of us impeachment talk is to get those people who are not politically aware to think in terms of impeaching the president because he mustve done something wrong. So the game is to keep the vocabulary in front of the public as long as they can keep it there in hopes in 2020 there will be enough people who are not aware of what is going on that will reject the president because of what they have heard. I have a number of acquaintances that ill hear from them is this thing repeated back when i ask for their fax they dont have it. Its an emotional issue. I think the democrats know that in the trying to keep it in front of the public so when 2020 comes up there will be enough that people will believe it. You are absolutely correct. I dont think whatever happens, the issue of impeachment and the investigations of the president whether through the Judiciary Committee, the Financial Services committee under ms. Waters, whether it is the oversight and Reform Committee, whatever the committee decides to investigate something in the jurisdiction of the oversight and Reform Committee as broad as government, they can investigate anything. They dont have any subs in jurisdiction but they have very broad universal oversight, those are going to continue regardless of what they find them regardless of what the president does, they will continue because is not about the law or the constitution, its about politics. , and of argument. Youre absolutely correct. And the victim and all of that is we the people in the system of government has weakened by the fact that the mechanisms which were used and provided for to ensure that our system of government operate properly within the bounds of our constitution to protect liberty and to make sure they do not work democrats do not want them to work, they want to get rid of a political opponent and by using these mechanisms of government that are designed to protect the legitimate functions of government and to protect liberty are being abused, misused and thats all they care about. They will continue this until election day and if the election does not turn out how they want they will continue. Every day that they do that weakens our system of government and thereby weakens liberty. The independent based upon taxation without representation the most important points. That was one of the igniting factors for the revolution. This taxation currently also limiting freedom. Taxation by the very nature limits freedom. I have a clever idea in which we could get rid of the 30000 taxing agencies in the United States and still underway to turn to government because the government need money to run their business. There are hardly any people that can envision the government without a taxing agency because there are bills to be paid. I have found a way where we can get rid of all the taxes and fund the government in a different way and with there be an interest in that . There would be, thats outside the topic of her discussion today. What i would be interested but in the context of her discussion here, are there any questions about impeachment or investigation . Thank you. Freedom in important. Absolutely. Can use the microphone so they can pick it up in the vid video. I think the question in everybodys mind at least a lot of people, do you think trump will be impeached by next year . Just a simple question. There is no simple answer. It is a responsible answer. I dont know. I have written a piece, if you go to freedom works, jason and i wrote a piece early this year a white paper that talks about these issues and one of the things that we talk about is the fact that at the time this paper was published which was a couple of months ago, interview there is not any appropriate basis to impeach. Even obstruction of justice. For which democrats are waiting breathlessly for mr. Mueller to appear on wednesday so if in fact in the absence of some new revelation of a serious violation to the law by the president committed while in office not before he entered office, absent that, based on what we know now and based on a correct interpretation of the constitution, impeachment history in the law, there should not be in impeachment, there is nothing that comes close to an impeachable offense. Does that mean he will not be impeached . No. The rational historically faced view does not seem to be have much currency in the congress and the democratic majority. They could very well impeach him and the sad thing is, it will not mean anything. That is what im talking about. If they impeach on something as amorphous as we dont like his tweet about something. Then what they are doing, they the democrats who vote for that thing, they are devaluing the whole notion of impeachment and how you hold or why you would hold a president accountable. By impeaching for something that was not ever intended to and historically has not been used with an impeachable offense. They could very well, it would not surprise me. It would be very sad because of what it does to our system of constitutional checks and balances. It would basically be the death of impeachment and therefore the death of a legitimate way that was given to us prior founders in our system to correct an imbalance. We thank you very much. [applause] thank you. One quick question . This is slightly offtopic. It is so difficult reading news from every source to tell if President Trump to ministration as chaotic and terrible as most of the leftwing says. [inaudible conversations] the United States air force retired. A special assistant to the University Provost he integrates the University Departments to expand expeditionary opportunities for the students so that you may learn what its t