Yes, she love the notoriety, and it does get in the way of her being a better litigator. Her witnesses did good, especially Mr. Sampson. He did very well. :-)
Much if not all of Orly’s witness testimony might get dismissed by Mahili due to one or another legal technicality. Otherwise, however, I think Mr. Sampson is not just a credible witness as a former US immigration agent, but also his testimony may help dispel charges by the Obama camp of racism. If any legally significant outcome comes from Orly’s case, and in response, Obama were to be tempted to charge that the testimony was tainted with racism, then it could be construed as indirectly charging (it seems to me) all of the INS personnel with racism. Perhaps Mr. Sampson’s testimony would act as a deterrent to that possibility.