Reservist questioning Obama's citizenship wants judge recused




By ELAINE SILVESTRINI

Published: August 7, 2009

TAMPA - A Lutz Army reservist who is challenging the citizenship of President Barack Obama is now attacking the federal judge who denied his legal claims.

Stefan Frederick Cook and his California attorney, Orly Taitz, have filed motions in U.S. District Court asking that Judge Richard A. Lazzara be removed from his case and seeking a rehearing on complaints Lazzara dismissed. But the judge immediately denied the most recent motions.

Lazzara last month threw out Cook's lawsuit and a petition for a restraining order in which Cook asked to be reinstated to his civilian job working for a military contractor. Cook claimed his employer, Simtech, fired him under pressure from the Defense Department after he went to federal court in Georgia challenging his deployment to Afghanistan.

Cook questioned his deployment orders on the grounds Obama was not born in the United States and is not legally commander in chief.

Such claims about Obama's birth have been widely debunked, including at Factcheck.org, but they have taken hold among a segment of the population who are referred to as "birthers." Taitz is one of the leading purveyors of the claim that Obama's presidency is illegitimate. The governor of Hawaii and other Hawaii officials have stated Obama was born in that state, and newspapers in Honolulu have printed his birth announcements.

Cook and his lawyer are not only challenging his orders, but say every military order issued under the Obama administration should be reviewed by the courts to determine whether Obama is the lawful commander in chief.

The new motions in the Cook case assert Lazzara is "pervasively biased" and may have been influenced by the White House or Defense Department when he denied Cook's efforts to get his job back..

"Whether Judge Lazzara acted prejudicially upon orders or coercion from other branches of government or if Judge Lazzara was acting solely or exclusively out of blind personal prejudice against the questions raised by plaintiff's application and complaint, Judge Lazzara is disqualified to serve as judge and must either recuse himself or be recused," one of the motions states. The motions even criticize Lazzara's grammar.

Lazzara dismissed the motions without even issuing written orders. Instead, there are entries on the court's docket stating the motions are "frivolous and wholly without merit."

The Army has issued a statement saying Cook could have easily avoided his deployment without going to court. Because Cook was a reservist who volunteered for deployment, he could have requested that his orders be revoked at any time until he entered active duty.

"I am neither a pacifist nor a coward," Cook says in an affidavit filed with the court. "My conscientious and moral objections rest entirely on my constitutional duty to doubt and question the legitimacy of the de facto commander-in-chief, who appears to be hiding behind his presidential power merely to avoid confirming his honesty or admitting his dishonest."

Cook also says in his affidavit that the "de facto" president appears to have "chosen to manipulate the Army in such a way and manner as to divert attention from the question, to evade judicial review of the Department of Defense chain-of-command, and to render all United States soldiers as servants or slaves of a totalitarian dictatorship."



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