Georgia- A former Georgia congressman who helped spark President Clinton’s impeachment has quit the Republican Party to become a Libertarian, saying he is disillusioned with the GOP on issues such as spending and privacy.

Bob Barr, who served eight years as a Republican congressman before losing his seat in 2002, announced Friday that he is now a “proud, card-carrying Libertarian.” And he encouraged others to join him.

“It’s something that’s been bothering me for quite some time, the direction in which the party has been going more and more toward big government and disregard toward privacy and civil liberties,” said Barr, 58, a lawyer and consultant living in Atlanta. “In terms of where the country needs to be going to get back to our constitutional roots … I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to do that is to work with a party that practices what it preaches, and that is the Libertarian Party.”

Barr said he has no plans to run for office. In his new role as the Libertarian Party’s regional representative for the South, he will help promote the party’s message and recruit candidates, he said.

Barr helped manage the House Republicans’ impeachment case before the Senate in 1999.

From the archives, 1999: Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt is accusing Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia of sexual infidelity, hypocrisy and lying under oath about an abortion.

Barr is refusing to discuss his personal life with the news media, but issued a statement saying “I have never perjured myself…I have never suggested, urged, forced or encouraged anyone to have an abortion.”

In a late-night news conference in California, Flynt released an affidavit from Barr’s former wife, Gail, in which she said Barr paid for an abortion she had in 1983 and that he never objected to it.

Barr said under oath in his 1986 divorce testimony that he did object to the abortion. The ex-wife also said in the affidavit that she now believes Barr, while still married to her, began an affair with the woman he married a month after the divorce became final in 1986.

Neither Barr nor his current wife, Jeri, denied an affair when asked about it repeatedly during the divorce proceedings.

Flynt is offering up to $1 million for information about sexual indiscretions by members of Congress. He wouldn’t say how much he paid Gail Barr for her affidavit, but said he found her “destitute” and made a “generous” financial offer.

Gail Barr declined comment.