Jeffrey Toobin Issued False Legal Statements to A. Cooper Regarding Vattel and the 14th Amendment.

naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com ^ | 02/17/2011 | Leo Donofrio, Esq.

[rxsid]

"Jeffrey Toobin Issued False Legal Statements to Anderson Cooper Regarding Vattel and the 14th Amendment.

With natural born citizen legislation racing through 11 state legislatures, truthful legal analysis is more important than ever. False statements issued on CNN yesterday via an Anderson Cooper interview with Jeffrey Toobin demand correction. CNN, should they not immediately correct the false statements, will be privy to the stench of propaganda.

Jeffrey Toobin, alleged to be a “CNN Senior Legal Analyst”, gave a clearly false description of Vattel’s definition of “natural born citizen”. Toobin stated that the Vattel definition requires a person to be born in the United States to parents who were also born in the United States.

That is absolutely false.

Vattel’s definition only requires that a person – to be considered a “natural born citizen” – be born in the United States to parents who were citizens. One does not have to be born in the United States to be a citizen. Persons born in foreign countries may become US citizens via the naturalization process despite their place of birth.

If a person is born in the US – of immigrant parents who were not born in the US but who have become US citizens prior to the child’s birth – that child is a natural born citizen according to Vattel. Vattel’s definition of natural born citizen, contained in his treatise, “The Law of Nations“, which – according to Ben Franklin – was with the framers at all times as they wrote the US Constitution, states that a person only needs to be born of parents who were citizens. It does not require that the parents be born in the United States.

This definition by Vattel was re-stated by the US Supreme Court in the case of Minor vs. Happersett. Here is the exact language from the US Supreme Court in the Minor decision:

“The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts.”

So here we see the US Supreme Court stating that persons born in the US to parents who are citizens are themselves natural born citizens. Nowhere does it state that the parents must be born in the US. The following definition is attributed to Vattel:

“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.”

This does not impose a requirement that the parents must have been born in the country. To this definition, Jeffrey Toobin falsely stated:

“What Vattel said was natural born citizens means you were born in the United States and your parents are also born in the United States.”

Furthermore, Toobin contributed additional false legal analysis when he stated:

“But the words of the Constitution have been interpreted many times by the Supreme Court, and what it means is born in the United States.”

That is unequivocally false.

First, to be a “citizen”, the 14th Amendment requires that a person be born in the US (or be naturalized in the US) and… that a person be “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. Despite erroneous popular belief, there is no US Supreme Court decision which states that simply being born in the US is enough to entitle a person to US citizenship. That is a legal myth to which Toobin is also guilty of spreading false legal analysis.

Second, the 14th Amendment does not define “natural born citizen”, it only defines “citizen”. Article 2 Section 1 of the US Constitution makes a clear distinction between a “citizen” – who is eligible to be a Senator or Representative – and a “natural born citizen” - who is eligible to be President.

Toobin has therefore issued clearly false legal statements. Either these are lies for propaganda purposes, or he’s just a terrible legal analyst.

If Anderson Cooper would like to have a serious debate between myself and Toobin, or any other so called “Senior Legal Analyst”, I would be happy to oblige.

And if legislators in the State of Montana – or any other state – would like legal guidance on this issue, I would also be happy to oblige.

Please contact me at:

leo_donofrio2000@yahoo.com

Leo Donofrio, Esq."

From: http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/jeffrey-toobin-issued-false-legal-statements-to-anderson-cooper-regarding-vattel-and-the-14th-amendment/

[Las Vegas Ron]

It's a Birthright, get it?

Go troll someone else.

[Danae]

I happen to believe that McCain has the same problem Obama does, but for different reasons. There is also a BIG difference, McCain got a nonbinding resolution stating that he was a Natural Born Citizen. Which means he would stand a pretty good chance of not facing a problem meeting the eligibility requirements.

I think both the candidates had the same general problem, but McCain was on better footing with regard to the issue, but that was by no means bedrock. I believe this may be the reason McCain didn't bring up the issue in the campaign.

I am far more aware than you appear to be, on the matter of which documents the founders relied upon in their definition of Natural Born Citizen, and WHY they chose the term, with its very specific meaning.

[MileHi]

The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.

So a child born here of an alien is a citizen as is a natural born child? So apperantly a "natural born" child is distict from a "child born of an alien"?

[allmendream]

Reducto ad absurdum (sp?) or “reducing to the absurd” is a perfectly legitimate and logical argumentative tool and has been used for millennia.

It can of course, like any tool, be misused. But I think it perfectly legitimate in this case, and if you don't feel so, explain why it is not applicable.

Arguing the hypothetical is even more a legitimate tool in debate. A system must withstand scrutiny. Read Einstein arguing with Bohr before you are so eager to dismiss the hypothetical argument.

[Danae]

“U.S. law and citizenship is not determined governed arbitrated or amended by the laws of any other nation.”

I am glad to see you caught on to that. It is one of the reasons NBC means Born to two citizen Parents and born upon the soil of their nation. Thats OUR law. Obama broke it.

Then he broke the constitution by taking an oath to the document he was breaking by taking it.

Lovely, golly, wonder why Obama thinks he can do any damn thing he likes including unconstitutional health care legislation, illegal bans on Oil drilling, using the EPA to do an end run around congress which has sole legal right to write the laws the EPA is supposed to enforce, not write for itself... Yea, exactly. Obama and his ilk have been looking for a way to get the constitution out of the way for over a hundred years. He knows he isn’t a constitutional POTUS.

It was deliberate. It was no accident.

[allmendream]

You seem to be suffering under the delusion they lifted the term from Vattel, when it is obvious in history that the translators of Vattel into English “lifted it” from our founders.

Vattel himself never used the term. He said “naturals/natives or indigenous” as I have already explained.

If our founders were using Vattel as their source the Constitution would more likely read “none but a natural or native indigenous citizen”.

The first translations of Vattel to use the term “natural born citizen” did not appear until ten years after the Constitution was ratified.

[Danae]

Hehe.

Ok, I’ll bite, how about you hypothetically kiss my a$$?

Its just hypothetical after all.

We are talking about a real current situation with Obama’s lack of NBC status. Keep it real or don’t thats up to you, but one thing is certain.... my offer stands. Hypothetically speaking of course.

[allmendream]

Caught on to that? Are you daft? It is the same argument I have made from the beginning.

U.S. law and citizenship is not determined governed arbitrated or amended by the laws of any other nation

Where in U.S. law does it say what you say?

Vattel isn't U.S. law.

When did Vattel become “OUR law”?

[Las Vegas Ron]

LOL!!

[allmendream]

I am sorry, I thought I was conversing with an adult.

How about you hypothetically go Cheney yourself in your Climber? Major League.

[Mr Rogers]

“In United States v. Rhodes (1866), Mr. Justice Swayne, sitting in the Circuit Court, said:

All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens. Birth and allegiance go together. Such is the rule of the common law, and it is the common law of this country, as well as of England. . . . We find no warrant for the opinion [p663] that this great principle of the common law has ever been changed in the United States. It has always obtained here with the same vigor, and subject only to the same exceptions, since as before the Revolution.”

Also note what it actually says, which is different from your paraphrase:

“The child of an alien, if born in the country, is as much a citizen as the natural born child of a citizen, and by operation of the same principle.”

As much a citizen, not also a citizen. Also, it says the ‘natural born CHILD’ of a citizen, not natural born citizen.

[MileHi]

So do you advocate that “anchor babies” are natural born as it pertains to the Presidency?

[justiceseeker93]

Jeffrey Toobin Issued False Legal Statements to A. Cooper Regarding Vattel and the Fourteenth Amendment

I pointed that out on another FR thread today, one which linked to the video of the Cooper interview of Montana State Rep. Wagner, followed by the Cooper interview of Toobin.

It's gutsy of Leo Donofrio to request a debate with Toobin on CNN, but his chances of getting one are, regrettably, slim and none. Of course, CNN doesn't want their "Senior Legal Analyst" to be humiliated by a "birther" lawyer on the legal issues. They'd rather see Toobin's misinformation remain unchallenged on the air.

[STARWISE]

How intact and sovereign is our Constitution now ?

How important is it to you that the documented essential elements therein remain intact and the law of the land, as created and clearly intended by the Founders in their time?

Their vision and brilliance is not diminished by time. Rather, time has but added layers of rich patina to this miracle of mission.

There have been regular efforts by Democrats over the years to weaken and alter the Founders’ obvious intent, created for sensible and serious purposes that matter to this day, by submitting bills to allow foreign born individuals to become POTUS/CIC.

I fear it won’t be very long before these putrid subversives of our Constitution will soon be successful in watering down that intent, in this volatile, polluted and polarized climate and the citizenry lacking the will and the courageous resistance to fight for truth. Lord, protect and save America.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thomas Jefferson’s draft in 1776 of a new constitution for Virginia included the provision regarding immigrants:

“All persons who...propose to reside...and who shall subscribe the fundamental laws, shall be considered as residents and entitled to all the rights of persons natural born.”[3]

On June 18, 1787, Alexander Hamilton submitted to the Convention a sketch of a plan of government.

Article IX, section 1 of Hamilton’s plan provided:

No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.”[4]

[edit] John Jay

Another possible source of the clause is a July 25, 1787 letter from John Jay to George Washington, presiding officer of the Convention. Jay wrote:

Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government, and to declare expressly that the Command in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_born_citizen_of_the_United_States

________________________________________

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ALLOW FOREIGN-BORN CITIZENS TO BE PRESIDENT

MONDAY, JULY 24, 2000

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Constitution,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 4:45 p.m., in Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Charles T. Canady [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.

Present: Representatives Charles T. Canady, Spencer Bachus, Bob Barr, Melvin L. Watt and Barney Frank.

Page 7

Staff present: Cathleen Cleaver, chief counsel; Jonathan A. Vogel, counsel; Paul B. Taylor, counsel; Susana Gutierrez, clerk; and Anthony Foxx, minority counsel.

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CANADY

Mr. CANADY. The subcommittee will be in order. The subcommittee meets now to conduct a hearing on H.J.Res. 88, which proposes an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to make eligible for the office of the President a person who has been the United States citizen for 20 years.

This amendment, which was introduced by the gentleman from Massachusetts Mr. Frank would change the portion of the Presidential qualifications clause in article II, section 1, clause 5 of the United States Constitution that limits eligibility for the Presidency of the United States to natural-born citizens.

[H.J.Res. 88 follows:]

106TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. J. RES. 88

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to make eligible for the Office of President a person who has been a United States citizen for twenty years.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY 29, 2000

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

Page 8 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to make eligible for the Office of President a person who has been a United States citizen for twenty years.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

‘’Article —

‘’A person who is a citizen of the United States, who has been for twenty years a citizen of the United States, and who is otherwise eligible to the Office of President, is not ineligible to that Office by reason of not being a native born citizen of the United States.’’

Mr. CANADY. As we will hear in today’s testimony, the drafters of the Constitution left little written record of the purpose of the natural-born citizen requirement.

Historians trace the origin of the phrase to a letter written by John Jay to George Washington during the Convention’s deliberations in 1787. Jay, who would become an author the Federalist Papers and would later be appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, recommended that the drafters provide, and I quote, a strong check, closed quote, against the admission of foreigners into the Government and expressly require that the Commander in Chief be a natural-born citizen.

Some sources suggest that Jay was responding to a rumor that the Convention was secretly designing a monarchy to be ruled by a foreign monarch, but Jay’s warning can also be seen simply as a reflection of the widely held fear of foreign influence in this new country’s elections and of a general distrust of executive power at that time.

Page 9

Many view these considerations as equally relevant today.

The natural-born citizen qualification continues to provide to the political system of the United States a certain level of protection against the influence of foreign nations.

In addition to this safeguard, the requirement also secures the ability of the President to make decisions involving domestic and foreign policy that are in the best interests of the United States without an inherent emotional or familial attachment to another nation.

Supporters of the measure, however, argue that the limitation is no longer warranted. They assert that distinguishing natural-born from naturalized citizens has no relevance in determining who might be subject to actual foreign influence.

Unlike natural-born citizens, naturalized citizens have made an express commitment to embrace this Nation’s principles. The many naturalized citizens have indeed served this country with great honor and distinction.

Moreover, supporters of the amendment regard eligibility for the Presidency as a civil right with strong symbolic importance and assert that the principle of equality is not served unless every citizen has the opportunity to reach the Nation’s highest office.

I want to thank the witnesses for being with us here to discuss this matter. I look forward to their testimony.

Now I will recognize the author of this proposed Constitutional amendment Mr. Frank.

Page 10

Mr. FRANK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for giving us this hearing. The gentleman who suggested the amendment to me, Mr. Raimundo Delgado, is here and will be testifying.

I bring it forward for a very simple reason: It does not seem to me that there ought to be as a general principle any barriers to treating people who choose to come here and become Americans differently than people who were born here. I am also am a great believer in democracy virtually untrammeled.

Now, on the first point, we have had in recent years some legislation which seems to me unfortunately to reflect some animus toward immigrants. I think the reaction to that nationally has been a good one, and we are in the process of unwinding some of that. But the essential premise of this constitutional provision is that there is some reason to distrust the complete patriotism of people who were born elsewhere, and I have not found that to be the case as a general rule.

*snip*

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju67306.000/hju67306_0f.htm

[devattel]

rxsid said:

In 1787 Natural and Native were synonymous.

Thank you for these citations. Excellent ground work.

There is a reference to Natural Born Citizen in the most notable translations of Cicero's A Proposal. It was and still is the most common translation of Cicero's letters. All of the founding fathers were familiar with Cicero's works; they are undoubtedly classics. This masterpiece by Henry Eelbeck in 1720 revealed:



This is proof positive the phrase existed well before the framers ever penned it into the Constitution.



There is additional evidence the phrase existed in English and was common knowledge as far back as the early 1600's. Locating sources has been somewhat difficult. However, 19th century historical literature has shown that it does indeed exist.

[Danae]

ROFLMAO!!

Nice Alinsky dude, but completely lacking in flair. I give it a 2.4 out of 10.

[Danae]

I bow before your superior research skills madame!

Thank you for a truly enlightening post!

[frog in a pot]

Thank you for your question in #72, it underscores the absurdity of the view that natural born citizen status does not require the citizenship of two parents. It is a question that frightens the clearest thinking of the trolls. It will be interesting to see whether you get a response.

As argued on this board many times in the past few years - if there is no such requirement - an anchor baby born in a U.S. hospital and returned to the native county of its parents at an early age, raised in an anti-American culture with anti-American values, who then returns to the U.S. in middle age would indeed be eligible to serve as president.

The trolls will likely respond that if the founders had been concerned they would have included clear and precise language in the Constitution that avoided such an outcome. I.e., it’s a flaw yet to be corrected and O gets a pass.

That response should immediately fail. The founders did in fact include such language in the Constitution. The language was consistent with the wisdom and beliefs of the age, and distinguished clearly between the citizenship required of Senators and Representatives and that of the two political officers in the entire scheme that would be held to a higher standard, the President and Vice President.

So the trolls can only have it one of two ways, and the former leads to an unimaginably absurd and illogical result.

[mojitojoe]

YEP!!! He WILL pony up prior to 2012 or he can take a hike.

[Danae]

Hehe.

FR smackdown ;)