New campaign will organize impeachment supporters to file complaints with the Virginia State Bar

San Francisco, CA — Today, following Attorney General William Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Need to Impeach is launching a new campaign to go after Barr for protecting a corrupt president and betraying his oath to the American people. Barr is a member of the Virginia State Bar, and the new campaign will organize impeachment supporters — including over 187,000 in the Commonwealth — to file a complaint about Barr’s unethical behavior and urge the State Bar to revoke his license to practice law. The Virginia State Bar, which was established by the state legislature and is overseen by the Supreme Court of Virginia, has a stated mission to “protect the public, regulate the legal profession of Virginia, advance access to legal services, and assist in improving the legal profession and the judicial system.”

“William Barr has forfeited his right to hold the office of the Attorney General. Instead of upholding our laws and our tradition of democratic oversight, Mr. Barr has deliberately chosen to lie for a corrupt president who is acting more like a king than the leader of a free nation,” said Need to Impeach founder Tom Steyer. “Our system of justice depends on lawyers who accept their responsibility to uphold its ethical standards. Mr. Barr has proven incapable of or unwilling to do that, and he deserves to be disbarred.”

Need to Impeach will rally impeachment supporters over email and through digital ads on Facebook and Twitter, directing them to a webpage with a partially-completed Virginia State Bar complaint form. Need to Impeach’s organizers and volunteers in Virginia are also leading an effort to get Virginians to call the State Bar to make their complaint over the phone.

Barr is a longtime member of the Virginia State Bar, and knowingly making a false statement of fact or law is a violation of Rule 4.1 and grounds for disbarment. On Wednesday, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Barr said Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not take the Office of Legal Counsel’s guidelines into consideration when he declined to prosecute Trump — except Mueller explicitly did, stating so in his report.

Barr also proclaimed to the American people that Trump cooperated fully with the Mueller investigation — even though the President refused to sit down for an interview. And during a Senate hearing last month, Barr testified that he didn’t know if Mueller supported his conclusion — except Mueller sent Barr a letter weeks earlier saying his four-page summary letter did not “fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation and its conclusions.

By misrepresenting the findings of the Mueller Report in order to paint a more favorable image of Donald Trump, Attorney General Barr has shown that he is more interested in protecting Donald Trump than upholding the laws of our democracy and the ethical code of legal professionals. Need to Impeach will continue to organize the American people to stand up for the rule of law and hold the Trump Administration accountable for its historic lawlessness.