What's Obama's Birther Legal Bill?

Mother Jones ^ | 1-26-10 | Stephanie Mencimer

[STARWISE]

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

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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.

[rxsid]

HOW CAN A NATURAL BORN CITIZEN'S STATUS BE "GOVERNED" BY GREAT BRITAIN?

 

“When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children.

http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate.html

 

http://www.jeffersonsrebels.blogspot.com

 

Furthermore:  Hawaii's Territorial Law, Chapter 57 - "VITAL STATISTICS, I", shown beginning pg 23 of 29, (the law in effect in 1961) allowed baby's born anywhere in the world to be eligible to apply for a Hawaii birth certificate.

[jamese777]

If I had to guess, I would think the entire Obama birther legal bill is less than $10,000 and most of that is probably travel costs for DOJ attorneys. (And travel/coffee costs for the Attorney General who to fly from California to Georgia in order to “fix” one of the cases...in a coffee shop).

---

Yep. The million six hundred thousand dollar figure was the bill for ALL Obama campaign related legal expenses not just for legal expenses related to Obama’s birth certificate.
Only three out of 62 Obama eligibility suits had any legal work done by Obama related lawyers and that work was filing briefs to support summary dismissals.

[jamese777]

Obama paid lawyers in 3 of 64 lawsuits?

Just wondering: How much did it cost Obama and/or the Democratic Party to pay lawyers in those 3 cases mentioned above?

I bet it cost more than the $10 it would have cost Obama to get a copy of his Hawaii long form birth certificate-—the one with the doctor signature and the hospital name-—and show it to the American people.

---

Except the state of Hawaii no longer issues long form birth certificates to anybody, ever. The Certification of Live Birth is now the official birth document of the state of Hawaii since 2001.
Read it and weep, “Born Identity”:
http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html

[TheBigJ]

WRONG.

This excuse was debunked here by BP2 (his posting):

HRS §338, HRS §538, Hawaii Family Court rules & other state statutes require the Original Birth Certificate be available for — among other reasons — review by a Family Court Judge for Adoption & other Juvenile cases, which may come up years or decades after a child is born.
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol06_Ch0321-0344/HRS0338/HRS_0338-0016.htm

§338-16 (c) Such evidence shall be kept in a special permanent file.

§338-21 (b) The evidence upon which the new original certificate is made, and the superseded original certificate shall be sealed and filed and may be opened only upon order of a court of record.

One can obtain the Long-Form “CertificATE of Live Birth” for $10:
http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr131/stevesharp2918/RequestaLongformCOLBforDHHL.jpg

[little jeremiah]

I never read any of their comments any more; haven’t for months and months. It would be interesting to do a poll and find out how many regular aka “normal” and conservative freepers just see some of those all-to-familiar names and skip over them.

Life’s short. Why read crap lies? Unless pulverizing them or putting them in their place.

[TheBigJ]

David mentioned Zero’s also been represented by...

Kirkland & Ellis out of Chicago, Williams and Conley in D.C., Mayer, Brown & Platt...

with conservative costs estimate $5 million.

[jamese777]

If you click on your own link you’ll see that the wording has changed in the statute.

Is Barack Hussein Obama II applying to be adopted?

Anyone using the form in your second link will be sent the short form Certification of Live Birth. Don’t you think that the internet and the nation would be flooded with conservatives posting their Hawaii long forms if they could still get copies today?

[LucyT]

. . . . Update at #106.

[Thanks, TheBigJ.]

[TheBigJ]

Wrong.

Wrong.

And the next old excuse will be “all the certificates of live birth went electronic, none exist.”

Y

A

W

N.

Filling out the Request for Certified Copy Form will get you a Certificate of Live Birth as stated on DHHL as of June 2009:

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr131/stevesharp2918/LoaaKaAinaHoopulapula-DHHLrequirest.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr131/stevesharp2918/LoaaKaAinaHoopulapula-DHHLrequir-1.jpg

http://i477.photobucket.com/albums/rr131/stevesharp2918/LoaaKaAinaHoopulapula-DHHLrequir-2.jpg

Don’t you think by now someone in the realm of Barry’s universe would have come forward with what Hawaiian hospital he was born in?

[El Gato]

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.

Even a legitimate President doesn't have that power.

[votemout]

The problems on the issue are not created by birthers or wackos or anyone else but the person who holds the most powerful office in thwe world and who refuses to provide information about himself. Whether he has spent $25,000 or $2 million is is indicative of his arrogance and scorn for the electorate.

[TheBigJ]

More than a year later and many of us have our own mini Obama-files. Quite fascinating the sheer amount of clues which — if modern journalism was alive today — we’d have exposes by 60 Minutes and 20/20.

I’ve noticed a lot more people are now aware of the eligibility issue as they see deceit and lies in public office and wonder if it continues behind the veil propped up by the media. They need to know it’s real and as we know, Barry was born in Kenya. Berg said last nite he estimated 20 million people were aware, and if the number grew to 100 million it could have major sway.

Regardless for some, the rules will be changed again with their relativism and liberal theology, “It doesn’t matter where he’s born!” Or even: “It’s not Barry’s fault. It was the system that failed.” Illusion. With ill as it’s prefix and therefore a state of insanity.

[pissant]

You are not only a “robert” plant, you are an Obama plant. Get lost, troll boy.

[El Gato]

I’d like to know why is it that after 60+ suits that go no where,

Maybe when one of them gets to the point of looking at the evidence, rather than dismissing the case based on "standing" or "justicibility" or "jurisdiction", and then finds the suit to be without merit, you might have a point. But not until then.

[El Gato]

Theory?.... Wuz he wuz, or wuz he not, "adopted" by his Indonesian Step Father?

Doesn't matter. A child either is a natural born citizen at birth or he is not. A parent's action, including adoption, cannot change that status.

Of course it requires birth in country, or in it's armies or diplomatic corps, and two citizen parents. We know, from his own writing (or Bill Ayers?) and the COLB, if it's legit, that he fails on the second test. He may fail on the first as well.

Well wuz he?

Without seeing his long form birth certificate, no way to know. Even then the form might only show a name change to "Obama", without saying what it was changed from.

However there is some evidence, in the form of the divorce papers from his mother's second marriage to Sotero, which list a child over 18 that needs educational support, as well as his half sister Maya. That implies that he was adopted, but does not prove it. The same is true of the Indonesian school registration which shows his name as Sotero and his religion as "Muslim". But it's equally possible that his stepfather lied on that form, because otherwise he'd not have been able to attend school in Indonesia (didn't have to be Muslim, IIRC, but you did have to be an Indonesian citizen).

[Kenny Bunk]

.......birther attorneys have represented car dealers ...

Donofrio hardly fits the bill as a "Birther" attorney.

[butterdezillion]

If a person does a UIPA request for their own original, long-form birth certificate - even including the confidential portion - the DOH is required to send it to them, since HRS 338-18(a) refers to DOH rules authorizing disclosures, the rules authorize the release of certified copies of certificates, and UIPA says that if a document is authorized for release it MUST be released upon request.

They can say they don’t print this out until they’re blue in the face, but they have to obey their own rules and UIPA. There’s a place in the statutes where it says that even if a department says they’ve changed the rules, if they haven’t gone through the proper procedure to change the rules it doesn’t matter what they say; the old rules are still in effect. I’ve asked, and the rules which authorize the release of certificates has not been duly repealed or amended.

So they’re lying through their teeth.

[butterdezillion]

That is the part that leaves me feeling so helpless and hopeless. We’ve been able to document tons of stuff, but realistically speaking, what will ever come of it? There is no avenue through which the people can ensure that the law is enforced.

I think maybe the route we need to use is to inform Congress of the facts. They do have the ability to force an investigation, I think. Of course, I think somebody already has requested an FBI investigation and last I knew the FBI hadn’t done anything on it.

[El Gato]

Part two is that he is not born of two US citizens (under their completely made-up theory of what a natural born citizen is).

Completely made up?

What about this 1758 treatise on natural law that was the most cited such work, more so than Blackstone's commentaries, in the first decades of the Republic? (The original was in French, but many of the founders, Jefferson, Washington, Jay, and of course Ben Franklin, could read French, so they did not need the English translations.

Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui son nes dans le pays, de parents citoyens(diacritical marks left off)

Or in English, with some more of the translation for context. (It was painful typing in the French, but you can view it here)

§ 212. Of the citizens and natives.

“The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.”

Note than in the French the section 212 title is "Des citoyens et naturels." Which would really translate as "The Citizens and naturals or natural born citizens".

The work is of course " THE LAW OF NATIONS OR PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF NATURE APPLIED TO THE CONDUCT AND AFFAIRS OF NATIONS AND SOVEREIGNS FROM THE FRENCH OF MONSIEUR DE VATTEL."

You see "nature" "natural born". The "born in the country is enough" (actually born in the King's lands) criteria for Natural Born Subject, was of course set down by the Kings and Queens, whose interest was to have lots of subjects, very few of which stood a chance in hell of becoming King or Queen.

But I guess some birther invented a time machine, went back to 1750s Germany (Vattel was Swiss but was working in what is now Germany) and convinced him to write that, just to legitimize B.H. Obama. The racist bastid!

[El Gato]

Don’t you think that the internet and the nation would be flooded with conservatives posting their Hawaii long forms if they could still get copies today?

Not today, but up until the middle of last summer they could and some did.

Strangely enough, the Department of Hawaiian Home lands website had instructions in how to obtain the long form certificate, up until that time. They preferred it, and it saved the applicant time and hassle, since the short form does not contain sufficient information for their purposes.

But of course, you knew that.

BTW, I discovered that change *before* I read about on WND, or anywhere else.