A court martial board is convened by military orders. Lakin’s defense says that all military orders given since Jan 2009 are illegal and not to be obeyed - which would include the orders forming the board.
He is asking them to decide a question they have no jurisdiction on: “Is Obama a natural born citizen qualified to be President?”
If Lakin had his way, the Board would find “All orders since Jan 2009 have been illegal. Thus the order forming this board is illegal, as are the orders for any serviceman to go anywhere and do anything...so since this is not a real court martial, and since none of us has real, binding orders, we’re all just going to go home and see what happens.”
Won’t happen.
If Lakin really had a problem with Obama being eligible, he should have resigned his commission. He didn’t, and now he’ll have to pay the piper. My guess is dismissal, but we’ll see.
“Lakin’s defense says that all military orders given since Jan 2009 are illegal and not to be obeyed - which would include the orders forming the board.”
That’s what happens when congress ratifies someone unqualified.
That is a threshold question and as long as Obama is president he is obligated to prove his eligibility if so questioned. I think Lakin has a right to discovery on the issue, since his defense is predicated on nothing more than a request that the president prove he is legitimately authorized to give deployment orders and if he is denied the discovery and then convicted, then his conviction should be overturned.
If he were given an order by a General who refused to show him, when questioned, his commission, then he could not be convicted unless it were shown that the order came down from a person who had the authority to give that order. The constitutionality of any deployment by a president is contingent upon that person being eligible to hold the office.
Obama has an obligation to present ALL evidence of his eligibility before anyone has an obligation to obey any of is orders.
Actually, under the Manual for Courts Martial, he's asking the judge.
If Lakin really had a problem with Obama being eligible, he should have resigned his commission.
And that would have supported and defended the Constitution, just how?