Posted on 08/25/2008 7:42:37 PM PDT by neverdem
PHILADELPHIA - A Lafayette Hill attorney filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday challenging Sen. Barack Obama's claim to United States citizenship. The action seeks to remove the Democratic candidate from the November ballot.
To be eligible to serve as U.S. president, a person must be born in this country. According to Obama's birth certificate, which his campaign posted on its Internet site in June to quell rumors that he is foreign born, the Illinois senator was born in Hawaii on Aug. 6, 1961. On Thursday, Philip Berg filed a temporary restraining order in federal court to bar Obama from running for president, claiming the Democratic candidate was actually born in Africa.
"We really don't believe he was born in Hawaii," Berg said. "We think he was born in Kenya."
The presidential candidate's father, Barack Obama Sr., was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, according to Obama's campaign Web site.
Berg's suit claims the senator's grandmother, brother and sister, who live in Kenya, believe they were present during Obama's birth in the African country.
Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, grew up in Kansas, and his parents met at the University of Hawaii when Dunham was a student there, according to the Obama campaign. Eventually, Obama's father returned to Kenya, and his son grew up in Hawaii with his mother and for a few years in Indonesia after Dunham married an Indonesian man, Lolo Soetoro. Also, Obama lived with his maternal grandparents in Hawaii.
"If he was born in Hawaii, and he was adopted in Indonesia by Lolo Soetoro, (Obama) would lose his citizenship," Berg said.
The Obama campaign has a special section on its Web site, "Fight the Smears," that debunks the birth certificate story and other reports that have circulated about him during the campaign.
"It's part of a smear campaign," said an Obama campaign volunteer who identified herself as Rachel. "There are just so many lies out there."
The lawsuit claims three "independent" document forensic experts performed extensive tests on the digitally-scanned image of Obama's "Certificate of Live Birth" posted on the campaign's site and found the document to be "a forgery."
Jerome Corsi, author of the book, "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," has also deemed the birth certificate phony, according to The Annenberg Political Fact Check, www.FactCheck.org.
The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, aims to expose deception and confusion in U.S. politics.
Recently, FactCheck.org staffers "touched, examined and photographed" the original birth certificate kept at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago and concluded the document is genuine.
"The evidence is clear: Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A.," FactCheck.org staffers concluded.
Sean Smith, Obama's Pennsylvania communications director, was contacted Friday about the suit but declined comment.
The civil suit filed by Berg will be reviewed by the U.S. Federal Election Commission, according to Patty Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Keith Phucas can be reached at kphucas@timesherald.com or 610-272-2500, ext. 211.
If fastcheck says it’s authentic, I believe them. They are non-partisan AFAIK.
There are plenty of things to criticize Obambi about that are legitimate. Pushing this story I believe is similar to the people trying to claim that McCain isn’t a citizen because he was born in the Panama Canal-relying on deception.
Something to read in the morning ping
They’ll look at the Hawaii birth cert and the newspaper entry, and throw it out. That will be that. I bet it does not even get to discovery.
Unless someone can prove somehow that Barack was born in Kenya , good luck, then they’d need to prove that Stanley Ann was not a citizen.
The article is wrong on one count- the Constitution does not require that the president be born in the USA, but insists that the president be “natural born”.
Two US citizens can have a child in Uzbeckistan and that child will be a US citizen.
The Constitution does not define “natural born”.
Nobody can touch, examine and photograph an original birth certificate except a government official. It is kept by the state/city and only certified copies are given out, specifically to the person whose birth it records.
Anything else is a copy - period.
More Obama BS and lies.
Definitely NOT UNBIASED.
AFAYK is not very far. FactCheck is part of the Annenberg Challenge, part of which Obama and William Ayres belong(ed) to.
“We think he was born in Kenya.”
Let’s go on a safari.
I don’t think that the democRATS would be so brazen as to run somebody who could be disqualified by demonstrable ineligibility.
I put noting past the d’RATS but those are some pretty high stakes, don’t you think? If they lose and Obama is not eligible, they are absolutely finished as a political organization. This would be an unrecoverable error.
Welcome to Free Republic. Thanks for demonstrating that this story is getting legs, because it has started attracting newbies like you.
The same Annenberg.org which owns/runs/affiliated with "factcheck.org" that is connected with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and which Ayers co-founded?
LoL!
Yeah. I used to believe google would honestly report results of a search, too.
Last month half a million image results to "Obama birth certificate" disappeared in the space of a few days.
FactCheck is wholly owned by the Annenberg Foundation.
Obama and Ayres ran the Anneberg Challenge program in Chicago.
No bias here, no sirieee.
I don’t think that the democRATS would be so brazen as to run somebody who could be disqualified by demonstrable ineligibility.
***It’s not done out of brazenness, but out of stupidity. Also out of trust — they trusted Obama when they asked about the rumor. Once the higherups in the demorat party realize they’ve been lied to on something as big as this, Obambi will likely pay a high price.
Yeah, but one parent was UNQUESTIONABLY a Kenyan.
Guess what? Citizenship goes with the FATHER'S citizenship if the kid is born in the father's country.
You wrote: “ then they’d need to prove that Stanley Ann was not a citizen.”
I am suspecting you have not read the other 70 threads on this. The law at the time of Obama’s birth did not give citizenship to children born out of wedlock to only one young American parent when born overseas.
Essentially, it prevented illegitimate children of servicemen and foreign woman from claiming citizenship. If Obama was born in Kenya or Canada he is likely not a citizen.
I believe that is the operative word. Stanley Ann was a minor and Obama Sr. was not a U.S. citizen.
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