BORN IN THE USA?

Judge accused of 'intimidation'

Eligibility lawyer takes $20,000 penalty to next level

Posted: October 23, 2009
12:30 am Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A California attorney who has worked on a multitude of legal challenges debating the eligibility of Barack Obama to be president – because of questions over his ability to meet the U.S. Constitution's requirement for a president to be a "natural born" citizen – is taking a federal district judge's conclusions in her case to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, accusing the judge of intimidation.

A copy of a notice of electronic filing was posted on the website for Orly Taitz yesterday. It challenges the orders of Judge Clay Land, who imposed a $20,000 fine on Taitz for her work on the case, before the 11th Circuit.

"The undersigned counsel submits to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that this Court's (Judge Clay D. Land's) refusal to grant either of her last motions, while doubling its unreasonable assessment of sanctions against her from $10,000 to $20,000, rendered … a 'normal' course of litigation conduct both futile and potentially self-destructive," the website notice states.

"Judge Land's actions that amounted to misstating or misrepresenting ninety percent of what was presented in the pleadings and argument, completely ignoring ninety percent of the argument and facts, making extremely rude and demeaning remarks, showing bias; taken together, appear to be designed to silence her and, intimidate her and above all, punish her for what the court perceived as political rather than 'core' constitutional questions.

"It appears to be a thinly veiled threat to other attorneys not to pursue similar constitutional issues, which will have a chilling effect on the ability of the public to use federal court system to uphold their constitutional rights," the notice said.

"Judge Land's remarks amounted to nothing short of political lynching … Accordingly, the undersigned counsel submits that she reasonably feared that filing any further motions might lead to the imposition of further sanctions by this particular judge and court. Judge Land might well have increased the sanctions amount from $20K to $40K or even $100K, all without specifying any real violations of Rule 11, even if such further filings were merely to show the undersigned counsel's status as an attorney working pro bono without compensation…"

The document argues that the district court rulings "were not only manifestly incorrect, but showed a failure to review the plaintiff's initial filings … so that the filings in this case were in NO sense frivolous."

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"Aside from a general constitutional issue of members of the military being forced to violate their oath to uphold the Constitution, the undersigned has provided evidence that the members of the military are forced to violate their oath while following orders of Mr. Obama, as the Commander in Chief, who never provided any legal documents proving his eligibility for office as a Natural Born Citizen …

"The undersigned is hopeful that this honorable court, 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Ga., will show concern for the national security of this nation, as well as adherence to the Constitution and not only will reverse the order of sanctions, but will sua sponte forward this matter for further investigation to proper authorities or will remand the case to the district court to allow the undersigned to conduct necessary discovery to prove that the case was not frivolous and Rule 11 sanctions were not warranted," the pleading states.

Land had written, "Although counsel's present concern is the location of the president's birth, it does not take much imagination to extend the theory to his birthday.

"Perhaps, he looks 'too young' to be president, and he says he stopped counting birthdays when he reached age thirty. If he refused to admit publicly that he is older than the constitutional minimum age of thirty-five, should Ms. Taitz be allowed to file a lawsuit and have a court order him to produce his birth certificate?

"Or perhaps an eccentric citizen has become convinced that the president is an alien from Mars, and the courts should order DNA testing to enforce the Constitution. Or, more to the point, perhaps the court should issue a nationwide injunction that prevents the U.S. Army from sending any soldier to Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else until Ms. Taitz is permitted to depose the president in the Oval Office," he continued.

"It is clear that the Constitution does not contemplate that the judiciary will participate in the selection or removal of the president, unless an individual can clearly demonstrate that his individual constitutional rights are somehow violated by the process," Land wrote.

The arguments between attorney and judge have come in a case originally brought on behalf of a reserve military officer, Connie Rhodes, who questioned Obama's eligibility to hold office. Rhodes contended the question undermined the legitimacy of her orders under such a commander-in-chief to deploy.

Taitz previously brought a similar case, but the military simply canceled the officer's orders, eliminating the dispute.

Rhodes later decided not to appeal Land's adverse rulings in her case, a decision Taitz attributed to "duress" from her commanders. .

Taitz also has another case pending in California. She represents several dozen defendants, and attorney Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation represents two others. The judge in that case has taken under review a government motion to dismiss but also has scheduled a trial for January.

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born. Others argue one cannot be a "natural born" citizen without two citizen parents.

Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums exceeding $1 million to avoid releasing an original long-form state birth certificate that would put to rest the questions.

WND also has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records and his adoption records.

Because of the dearth of information about Obama's eligibility, WND founder Joseph Farah has launched a campaign to raise contributions to post billboards asking a simple question: "Where's the birth certificate?"

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