Rep. Barr Gave Keynote Speech at Racist Group’s Convention

WASHINGTON — A spokesman for Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) acknowledged Thursday that Barr was a keynote speaker earlier this year at a meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization promoting views that interracial marriage amounts to white genocide and that Abraham Lincoln was elected by socialists and communists.

Barr spoke at the organization’s semiannual convention on June 6 in Charleston, S.C. His presence was cited by Harvard law professor Alan M. Dershowitz, who testified against the impeachment of President Clinton at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. Barr, the most outspoken proponent of impeachment in the House, serves on the committee.

“Congressman Barr, who was fully aware of this organization’s racist and anti-Semitic agenda, not only gave the keynote address to the CCC’s National Board but even allowed himself to be photographed literally embracing one of their national directors,” Dershowitz wrote committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.).

In a letter to Hyde responding to Dershowitz, Barr had declared that Dershowitz’s accusations were “unfounded and deplorable.”