What's Obama's Birther Legal Bill?

Activists charge that Obama has spent millions to silence them in court. Not exactly, say the government’s lawyers.

Is President Barack Obama spending millions of dollars to hide the truth about his citizenship?

During Obama's 2008 run for the White House, his campaign and a host of other credible sources repeatedly debunked the conspiracy theory that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and was thus ineligible to serve as president.

But this failed to quell the "birther" movement, whose acolytes have filed more than 60 civil lawsuits challenging the president's citizenship. None of these suits have gone anywhere in court.

But birthers say that's because Obama has unleashed a phalanx of powerful lawyers to silence them—spending $1.7 million in the process, according to WorldNetDaily (WND), an enthusiastic online promoter of the birthers' cause.

Given the sheer number of cases, it seems plausible that the president and the government may have been forced to devote real resources to their defense.

But in fact the opposite may be true: The birthers' own copious legal bungling could wind up costing them more than Obama will have to spend defending himself.

The birthers have peppered dozens of state and federal courts around the country with legal challenges—against the president and other government officials and organizations who had some role in allowing Obama's name to be placed on the ballot, including the Federal Election Commission, various state election officials, and the US Supreme Court. Some of the suits, particularly those filed by the movement's leading lady, California lawyer/dentist Orly Taitz, have been headlined by members of the military claiming they've been wrongfully made to serve in foreign wars by an illegitimate commander in chief.

Most recently, birther attorneys have represented car dealers who charge that Obama is a phony president who lacked the authority to order a restructuring of Chrysler that they say cost them their businesses.

WorldNetDaily has noted that FEC filings show that Obama's presidential campaign has paid out more than $1.7 million since the election to the law firm of Perkins Coie. Until recently, that firm was home to Obama's campaign lawyer, and now White House counsel, Robert Bauer—the very same DC lawyer, says WND, who has defended Obama in many of the birther lawsuits.

Ergo, WND concluded, Obama must be devoting that entire $1.7 million to crushing birthers in court. This is a ridiculous claim: Even after an election is over a presidential campaign has plenty of need for lawyers as it winds down operations and meets campaign finance law requirements.

But WND's editors believe they have a smoking gun in a letter Bauer sent on April 3 to John David Hemenway, a DC lawyer representing retired Air Force Colonel Gregory Hollister in a suit against "Barry Soetoro…de facto President in posse." (Some birthers claim Obama is actually an Indonesian citizen who shares his last name with his Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro.)

The lawsuit claims that Hollister may be unable to perform his duty to uphold the Constitution if Obama called him out of retirement and ordered him to war, because Obama isn't a natural-born citizen.

A US District Court judge dismissed the "frivolous" case and reprimanded the 83-year-old lawyer for filing it. Nonetheless, Hemenway appealed, prompting Bauer to send him a letter warning that Obama would seek sanctions if he pursued the matter.

WND and many of its readers apparently believe this letter proves that Obama has teams of expensive lawyers working round the clock to stomp out the suits and intimidate the underdog plaintiffs and their attorneys.

The White House never responded to WND's questions about the legal fees, and Bauer didn't respond to Mother Jones. But the birthers' lawsuits don't exactly seem to be requiring Obama's lawyers—government or private—to burn the midnight oil.

Roger West, an assistant US attorney in the central district of California, represented the government in a lawsuit brought by Taitz on behalf of perennial presidential candidate Alan Keyes, asking the court to require that Obama prove he is a natural-born citizen.

The case has dragged on for more than a year, mostly because Taitz, a graduate of an online, unaccredited law school, failed to serve the defendants. Judge David O. Carter dismissed the suit in October for a host of reasons, but Taitz has appealed.

Yet West says that far from bleeding his office, Taitz and her co-counsel Gary Kreep have assembled such a weak case that he hasn't had to spend much time on it.

"I filed one motion that didn't take too long, we've had two hearings and that's it," he says. "It's not like we've devoted some sort of task force to this."

Army Major Rebecca Ausprung handled two of the birther cases against the Department of the Army that disputed Obama's authority as commander in chief to order soldiers to war. Ausprung says she spent a few hours drafting motions and doing research, and she did have to make three short trips to Georgia from Arlington, Virginia.

She prevailed in both cases. "The monetary cost to the government in defending these two cases was extremely minimal," she says.

Or consider a case filed by one of the most prolific birther litigants, Philip J. Berg, that went all the way up to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. In November the court dismissed the appeal and ordered Berg to pay the legal costs for the defendants, which included the Federal Election Commission.

Here was the government's big chance to recoup its millions. But when the FEC submitted its bill, the grand total came to $20.40. This doesn't include the cost of the time government lawyers spent writing briefs and appearing in court.

Yet it's clear that as much of a nuisance as these suits are for the government, that's all they are: a nuisance.

In fact, the plaintiffs may be spending far more time and money on these cases than Obama or the government is, in part because of their failure to abide by basic court procedures.

In one of the Georgia cases Ausprung handled, a federal judge sanctioned Taitz in October for $20,000 for, among other things, pursuing a case long after a judge had dismissed it and her own client had discharged her. Taitz has refused to pay the fine.

So far, judges have been remarkably tolerant of the birthers' shenanigans—despite being handed abundant opportunities to throw their petitions out of court. In one case, Taitz allegedly encouraged supporters to contact the judge by phone and mail to lobby for her cause—a glaring ethics violation that he chose to ignore.

Another of her cases only went forward because the federal judge basically begged the defendants to let Taitz serve them—the first step in any lawsuit, but one that Taitz had neglected to take for about seven months.

The judges' written opinions suggest that by giving the birthers' cases a full airing, they hope to put some of the most outrageous allegations to rest.

But not only have the birthers shown little gratitude to the judges who have indulged them, their court losses have also fueled the conspiracy theories that the judges had hoped to extinguish.

Taitz accused US District Judge Clay Land of having improperly discussed one of her cases with Attorney General Eric Holder, and submitted a sworn eyewitness account describing a clandestine meeting in a Columbus, Georgia, coffee shop between the judge and a man with a "trim upper lip mustache, not large of stature and general olive complexion"—whom the source naturally assumed to be the attorney general.

On the day in question, however, Holder was making a public appearance 2,000 miles away in Los Angeles. Expect the birthers' theories to become even more far-fetched as their legal endeavors continue to fail.

Is this a hoax???

Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-IL 1st)
9th-term Democrat from Illinois.
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All messages are published with permission of the sender. The general topic of this message is Intelligence:
Subject:
VERY QUIETLY OBAMA’S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES THE SUPREME COURT

To:
President Barack Obama
Sen. Richard Durbin
Sen. Roland Burris
Rep. Bobby Rush

January 11, 2010

VERY QUIETLY OBAMA’S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES THE SUPREME COURT
AP- WASHINGTON D.C. - In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group “Americans for Freedom of Information” has Released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College . Released today, the transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship.
This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking. Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya and there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship, this is looking pretty grim. The news has created a firestorm at the White House as the release casts increasing doubt about Obama’s legitimacy and qualification to serve as President. An article titled, “Obama Eligibility Questioned,” is leading some to speculate that the story may overshadow economic issues on Obama’s first official visit to the U.K. In a related matter, under growing pressure from several groups, Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to hear arguments concerning Obama’s legal eligibility to serve as President in a case brought by Leo Donofrio of New Jersey . This lawsuit claims Obama’s dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as president. Donofrio’s case is just one of 18 suits brought by citizens demanding proof of Obama’s citizenship or qualification to serve as president.

Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation of Obama’s campaign spending. This study estimates that Obama has spent
upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure of any of his personal records. Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation is still ongoing but that the final report will be provided to the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder. Mr. Holder has refused to comment on the matter.

LET OTHER FOLKS KNOW THIS NEWS, THE MEDIA WON’T !

Subject: RE: Issue of Passport?

While I’ve little interest in getting in the middle of the Obama birth issue, Paul Hollrah over at FSM did so yesterday and believes the issue can be resolved by Obama answering one simple question: What passport did he use when he was shuttling between New York , Jakarta , and Karachi ?

So how did a young man who arrived in New York in early June 1981, without the price of a hotel room in his pocket, suddenly come up with the price of a round-the-world trip just a month later? And once he was on a plane, shuttling between New York, Jakarta , and Karachi , what passport was he offering when he passed through Customs and Immigration? The American people not only deserve to have answers to these questions, they must have answers. It makes the debate over Obama’s citizenship a rather short and simple one.

Q: Did he travel to Pakistan in 1981, at age 20?
A : Yes, by his own admission..

Q: What passport did he travel under?
A: There are only three possibilities.
1) He traveled with a U.S. . Passport,
2) He traveled with a British passport, or
3) He traveled with an Indonesia passport.

Q: Is it possible that Obama traveled with a U.S. Passport in 1981?
A: No.. It is not possible. Pakistan was on the U.S. State
Department’s “no travel” list in 1981.

Conclusion: When Obama went to Pakistan in 1981 he was traveling either with a British passport or an Indonesian passport..

If he were traveling with a British passport that would provide proof that he was born in Kenya on August 4, 1961, not in Hawaii as he claims. And if he were traveling
with an Indonesian passport that would tend to prove that he relinquished whatever previous citizenship he held, British or American, prior to being adopted by his Indonesian step-father in 1967.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the American people need to know how he managed to become a “natural born” American citizen between 1981 and 2008..

Given the destructive nature of his plans for America, as illustrated by his speech before Congress and the disastrous spending plan he has presented to Congress, the sooner we learn the truth of all this, the better.

If you Don’t care that Your President is not a natural born Citizen and in Violation of the Constitution, then Delete this and go into your cocoon.

If you do care then Forward this!

Orland Park , IL

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