Obama Eligibility Challenge Reaches United States Supreme Court
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
REPEATING A LIE “DOESN’T MAKE IT TRUTHFUL”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Jan. 28, 2014) — A petition for certiorari regarding Barack Hussein Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve as president and commander-in-chief arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court and was docketed as of January 23, 2014 after a long and circuitous routing through the New York State courts.
Obama’s eligibility has been questioned since late 2007, when commentator Chris Matthews stated on air that Obama was “born in Indonesia,” followed by a similar report in a Hawaii newspaper. Various reports in African newspapers dating back to before Obama’s first presidential election in 2008 stated that Obama was born in Kenya. His own biographer concurred until April 2007, when the official narrative changed to say that Obama was born in Hawaii.
Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires the president and commander-in-chief to be a “natural born Citizen.”
Compounding doubt as to whether or not Obama meets the constitutional criteria, he claims that his father was a citizen of Kenya and later, Great Britain, following Kenyan independence in 1963. Research into the intent of the “natural born Citizen” clause has shown that the citizenship of the parents, and not the birthplace, was actually paramount in determining a child’s citizenship and allegiance. In the modern era, however, the term has been eviscerated such that most Americans interpret it to mean a simple birth on U.S. soil without regard to the parents’ citizenship.
Obama claims a birth in Hawaii, but the two birth certificates he has allegedly presented to the public were declared “computer-generated forgeries” in 2012 by a criminal investigatory team. His Selective Service registration form, likewise, was found fraudulent.
Neither the courts nor Congress have been willing to examine the issue of whether or not Obama is usurping the office of the presidency.
The case Laity v. New York began in December 2011 with a ballot challenge filed by Robert Christopher Laity with the New York State Board of Elections which Laity said became a “hot potato” that the courts “didn’t want to handle.”
A 100% disabled U.S. Navy veteran, Laity is the founder of the “Society for the Preservation of Democracy and Human Rights.” He told The Post & Email that “recently, it was changed to the ‘Society for the Preservation of our American Republic’ on the suggestion that more accurately illustrates the mission of the organization.”
Laity has extensive legal training and has served as a legal advocate for others. Because of his disability, he performs virtually all of his work on his home computer. He wrote the eligibility challenge, which consists of 27 pages, without any assistance. Although he said that the actual writing of the brief took “a few hours,” he later clarified that it “was actually the end result of five years of writing on the subject.”
Before filing his current case, Laity took part in the American Grand Jury organized by Bob Campbell in 2009 and attempted to file a criminal complaint against Obama with a local magistrate, Leslie Foschio. “We were to give the presentments to our local officials, so I presented them to all three major networks in the area, and they all interviewed me, but not one of them put me on TV” Laity said. “I gave copies to my mayors, to the Supreme Court, and to all the U.S. District Court judges and magistrates. I sent letters out asking to swear out a criminal complaint against Obama, and it was
Judge Foschio who told me – I went up to his chambers and spoke to his judicial assistant while he was in the other room and she went in and talked to him – ‘The first thing you have to do is notify your law enforcement about this complaint.’ I went to the FBI, and they said ‘We don’t take criminal complaints; we only investigate them.’ They gave me a number to call, and it was for the Secret Service. And they said, ‘We’ve talked to you about this before,’ and I said, ‘No, you haven’t.’ So I filed a local police report with my town police, and they gave me a complaint number. The chief of police told me that they were down there talking to them about me, not about my complaint…’What kind of guy is this? Do you have any trouble with him?’ The police told me that federal agents were in their precinct, and they did refer it to the FBI, and that was in 2010.”
Laity had charged Obama with treason and ineligibility to be president. “That was what Judge Foschio told me to do,” Laity said. He also filed the complaint with the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York but was told that they couldn’t accept it.
“The complaint had to be generated by them,” Laity said. “Prior to 1946 and the revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, we had citizen grand juries, which are a constitutional right. Those juries go all the way back to the Magna Carta…and some ‘rulemaker’ says they’re ‘obsolete…?’ That right does exist; it’s never gone away. It just has to be dusted off and used.”
The Post & Email has reported extensively on prosecutors and judges’ denial of access to citizens to current sitting federal grand juries. Local grand juries are often corrupt and completely controlled by the judiciary. The National Liberty Alliance, now active in 50 states, is attempting to reconstitute citizen control of courts and grand juries. [How did that work out?
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When Mr. Laity was seven years old, he and his older sister skipped school to hear John F. Kennedy, then a presidential candidate, speak in his home town of Wilkes-Barre, PA. “I remember that we had a gazebo in the town square, and he was speaking from there. This was back in 1959. I climbed up onto the gazebo, on the speakers, to get a better look at him, and two guys grabbed me, one on each arm…’Get down form there, kid!’ and I still remember that to this day. So I guess I was a political activist even then,” Laity chuckled.
The Post & Email asked Laity the origins of his case and why he filed it, to which he responded:
I was reading all of the information about Obama’s not qualified to be president because he’s not a natural born citizen, etc., I had actually at one time considered voting for him, but then I heard a lot of talk about his not being qualified. So I saw “Obama Ballot Challenge” (now defunct) and read a few articles there, and I said to myself, “They’re right; this guy isn’t qualified.” So I filed a ballot challenge with the New York State Board of Elections in Albany in December 2011. I thought, “Well, that is a town record now, and I don’t have to worry about it.” Their rule is that you have to wait until the person is actually placed on the ballot before it can be challenged. So in February 2012, Obama’s name showed up on the ballot, and I immediately sent an email to the Board of Elections, reminding them of the letter I sent by certified mail in December 2011.
I thought that constituted the filing of my challenge. For the next several weeks, I was on the phone back and forth with the Election Board, and they were telling me that my challenge was in the general counsel’s office, and if it gets registered, something will be done about it. There were maybe five or six other people who challenged Obama in New York.
THE POST & EMAIL: On the same grounds?
MR. LAITY: Yes, that he’s not a natural born Citizen. So after the three days were up – it’s only a small window that you have to crawl through when you file a challenge – they came and notified me that I didn’t file the complaint properly. It had to be in writing. So I said, “I made a complaint in writing; I filed it in December and I reconfirmed it in February by email.” So they ended up eventually telling me that it wasn’t filed properly; it was filed in the wrong venue; I didn’t serve Obama, because I’m supposed to make service on Obama if I’m challenging him, and so forth and so on.
Well, I did make a formal complaint, and I did serve Obama; I sent a letter to Eric Holder, who is the person who accepts formal service on anything sent to Obama. So I appealed to the New York Court of Claims, and they ended up telling me that I was seeking more than monetary damages; I was seeking action by the court which it had no jurisdiction to effect. While I was in the Court of Claims, I realized I was told I was in the wrong court, so I asked them to transfer the case to the Supreme Court, which, believe it or not, is the lower level in New York, not the highest level; they’re at the first tier. The second tier is the appellate division, and the third tier is the Court of Appeals.
So within the 90 days that I had to appeal the Board of Elections ruling, I asked the court to transfer the case to the Supreme Court because I had found out that it was in the wrong court. What they did is tell me they didn’t have the authority to transfer it, so I filed the same case myself. The state then came back and said, “We don’t have any defense briefs in this case,” and I was wondering, “Why wouldn’t they want to answer the charge?” Usually when you’re sued by somebody, you make an answer to it; you make some sort of affirmative defense, and they didn’t even want to. So I never got to present any evidence before the Supreme Court just dismissed the case out-of-hand.
THE POST & EMAIL: Did you think that something was wrong at that point?
MR. LAITY: Yes, because it didn’t seem procedurally correct. I had asked the court to give me a date, but the other side wasn’t even defending the case. So I just took it in stride and appealed it to the New York State Supreme Court, Third Appellate Division in Albany. They ended up rejecting it, too, saying that it was two separate cases, and told me to go back to the lower courts and have separate appeals prepared. The other side, New York State, wasn’t cooperating; when I asked for their signature on the form, they refused to give it to me, and I had to move the court to grant me permission to submit the record on appeal without the other side’s signature, and they denied that. Then I made a motion for rejoining the case, because it wasn’t two cases. I tried to explain to them what happened, that I went to the wrong court…There were multiple procedural deficiencies and failure on New York State’s part to even follow procedure. I had never seen anything like this; they just weren’t defending it.
So nine months later, the Appellate Division sent me a letter telling me that I didn’t follow instructions about getting the record on appeal from the lower courts. I told the court, “There are only a few documents available because there is no record, because there was no defense, no evidence presented, no opportunity to do so…” And I said, “What you have in your hand is the record; that’s it, only five or six papers. There’s a ruling by the claims court of a couple pages by a judge , but he dismissed it because of a lack of jurisdiction to give me what I wanted.
THE POST & EMAIL: Did you get the feeling that they were orchestrating their denials?
MR. LAITY: That’s exactly the way I felt. They found every technical way to get rid of it, like a hot potato that they didn’t want to handle.
Finally, I went to the highest court in the state, the New York State Court of Appeals. They simply gave me a one-line ruling that said, “It’s dismissed because it does not lie,” which means that there is no foundation for it; it’s not ripe for review. So I said, “Well, I’m going to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I ended up writing the 27 pages. I think the case has a lot of foundation in it because it’s a prima facie case. We all know what “natural born Citizen” is, and being from this area,
I read The Law of Nations in the original French. Being so close to Canada, we kind-of dabble in French. Even some of our merchandise is in French and English. Niagara Falls has bilingual signs up. The Canadians are over here quite a bit. I hate to say this, but I can sing the Canadian national anthem better than I can sing our own.
THE POST & EMAIL: Ours is not easy to sing. Did you know French before you read The Law of Nations in its original language?
MR. LAITY:
I went to high school and was taught by French-Canadian priests. My instructors told me that I was bastardizing the French language, so I went to study German after that. I like to study languages; that’s one of my hobbies. When you look at the definition of “natural born Citizen” in English, it’s “born in a country of parents who are citizens,” but when you look at the original French, it says “parents citoyens,” which means “parents” [plural], and “citoyens” is “citizens” [plural]. So that means both parents. It doesn’t say “of a parent who is a citizen;” it says “of parents who are citizens.” So right away, Obama’s prima facie shows he is not qualified because everybody knows his father was not naturalized. So it’s prima facie; there’s no other proof necessary.
So all this discussion about the birth certificate…I don’t care if he was born in the Lincoln Bedroom; his father was not American. The dominoes fall from there, because if he’s not authorized to be in the Pentagon or in a military war room, that makes him a spy.
THE POST & EMAIL: I know you’ve said that in many of your comments at The Post & Email.
MR. LAITY: I checked that out with a military lawyer, and after talking to him back and forth, he saw my point of view. Last week I spoke with (Capt.) Pamela Barnett (Ret.), and when I mentioned to her about the UCMJ, a light lit up in her head. She said, “I never thought of it that way.”
THE POST & EMAIL: Were you assisted at all in producing your brief?
MR. LAITY: Yes, I paid Cockle Legal Briefs to print it. There are strict rules that the U.S Supreme Court has. The book has to be in a certain “Century” typeset and it has to be bound and on 6 x 9-inch paper on a 65-pound weight. You have to send out 40 copies to the Supreme Court, and each of the persons served has to be given three copies. I couldn’t do it myself, so I paid a professional legal brief preparation company to do it, and they did a very good job.
THE POST & EMAIL: I’m sure it was very expensive.
MR. LAITY: Actually it was only $1,500, including the $300 filing fee.
I had a Supreme Court case 20 years ago for whistleblowing retaliation when I worked at the Veterans Administration. They have what they call in forma pauperis, which means that if you cannot afford to pay the fee, they’ll let you just type your brief and submit only ten copies. You go to Kinko’s or FedEx, and it’s not much to make the copies: $3.00 or $4.00. I qualified for in forma pauperis then.
But because I make too much money right now, as I’m getting a 100% pension, I couldn’t apply for in forma pauperis, because I just wouldn’t meet the guidelines. I had to professionally prepare the brief as a lawyer would.
THE POST & EMAIL: You seem very knowledgeable about legal filings.
MR. LAITY: I am a trained legal assistant, and I have an honorary degree in law. I take online courses in law. The vice president of my organization, Jim Carney, also worked for the VA. He and worked for the VA; he’s been there for 41 years. He used to be the union chairman. Years ago, he had a case in which he was wrongfully terminated. He and I fought for 16 years to get his back pay for that one year that he was wrongfully terminated, because they restored him without pay loss. After 18 years, we finally won. In his case, he went pro se all the way to the Supreme Court, and my whistleblowing case went all the way to the Supreme Court pro se. So we had lawyers in the community saying,
“You’re the only janitors that we know who ever “pro-se’ed” themselves to the Supreme Court.
The bottom line of this story is that went to become a legal assistant because I wanted to help him, because he has PTSD, and he’s a three-time Purple Heart recipient. At the time, I was a union official, and I wanted to get justice for him. So I specifically went to legal assistant school so I could learn something about the law. Everything clicked with me; I love the law.
I retired in 2003, and I still have clients. Under federal law, you don’t have to be an attorney to appear before administrative boards such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). You don’t have to be an attorney. It’s all done from my computer at home; I send the research by email and snail mail.
THE POST & EMAIL: So you don’t have to go to court hearings?
MR. LAITY: No, you don’t have to have oral arguments or hearings; you just waive those. I have several cases in the EEOC right now in Washington. It’s amazing; a few days ago, on January 22, I felt kind-of good because it was “pro-life day,” and right there, when they were talking about pro-life on the steps of the Supreme Court, I was thinking, “My case is going in there today.” I always wanted to go to the pro-life march, but it’s always so cold that I don’t want to take the chance.
THE POST & EMAIL: What is the process for your case now?
MR. LAITY: The case has been given a docket number, 13-875. The book was stamped, and I got it back in the mail with the docket number stamped on it. Now they will take the case to conference. If there are Supreme Court justices who accept the case, then I’m in.
THE POST & EMAIL: Do you have any idea of the time frame?
MR. LAITY: The term started in October. They usually don’t take too long. I would say that the longer you wait, the more chance you have, because normally if they’re not going to take the case, they’ll notify you quickly.
THE POST & EMAIL: What are the major points you made in your brief, and why do you think the court should review it?
MR. LAITY: I’m claiming that Obama is not a natural-born Citizen, and he’s not constitutionally qualified to be president; that he’s never been the president; he’s not bona fide; that he has no lawful authority to act as presidency, and the fact that he usurped the presidency during time of war constitutes a violation of the UCMJ in the section that refers to unauthorized presence in a military base, such as the Pentagon, the war room, a ship, or an air base. He has no authority whatsoever.
There are several articles in Canada Free Press which state that Obama could not pass a national security test, and there’s an old article I have that says that presidential candidates don’t even get background checks.
THE POST & EMAIL: Just after the Cold Case Posse gave its second press conference on July 17, 2012, an FBI spokesman told me that the agency does not vet political candidates.
MR. LAITY: When I was a radarman in the Navy, I had to have an FBI background check. I had a Secret Clearance in the Navy.
THE POST & EMAIL: They go and talk with your neighbors and past employers, don’t they?
MR. LAITY: Absolutely; you can’t get the job without a background check.
THE POST & EMAIL: It seems that Americans who have been following this issue have learned that it apparently isn’t politically correct to check out politicians…The bigger issue with Obama is that we don’t really know who he is. Recently a criminology professor hypothesized as to why Obama used the alias “Soebarkah” on his mother’s passport records.
MR. LAITY: I sent the professor an email. I am wondering why two companies in England were established the day after Obama was elected.
Isn’t it interesting that Obama, our second usurper, and Chester Arthur, our first, were born with British citizenship? I sometimes wonder if it’s an insidious plan for the British to take our country back. It’s a strange thing. Chester Arthur used to have his staff salute the Union Jack.
THE POST & EMAIL: I didn’t know that, although I had read that his father did not naturalize until his son was about 14 years old. Chester Arthur burned the family Bible, where birth records were kept. Historically, a child took the citizenship of his father.
MR. LAITY: The founders wanted our president to be 100%, to have a mother and a father who were Americans.
THE POST & EMAIL: What else did you say to the Supreme Court?
MR. LAITY: That Obama also stands accused of treason. In 18 USC, Part 1, Chapter 115, Section 2381, it says that if a person is guilty of treason, he cannot hold any office in the United States of America. I said that prior to his becoming president, he campaigned for an enemy of the United States, Raila Odinga. President Kibaki was our ally, and Odinga ran against him. Odinga actually admitted to the press that Obama is his paternal cousin. Odinga is a Marxist, and so was his father. Very strange things are going on; we don’t need a person like this in our presidency.
THE POST & EMAIL: Obama called Jakarta, Indonesia his “old home town,” we don’t know why he has several aliases, and both of his birth certificates are declared forgeries. Now Obama is saying men in the military can wear turbans and beards. What do you think about that?
MR. LAITY: Allen West said it’s a bad idea, and I agree with him. Believe it or not, Obama is having Bibles prohibited; you can’t have them on your desk in the Army or Navy now; he’s taking crosses taken down in chapels because they might offend Muslim soldiers and sailors, which is totally against the Establishment Clause; he calls the military “his own,” and he’s purging the military of anybody who has refused to fire upon fellow Americans. I truly believe he’s a traitor and is throwing monkey wrenches into the works.
THE POST & EMAIL: There is a candidate for office from Florida who happens to be black…
MR. LAITY: In fact, that’s his name, Mr. [Joshua] “Black.”*
THE POST & EMAIL: Yes, you’re right. He has also named Obama as a traitor.*
MR. LAITY: When I had the Secret Service here, their main complaint was that I was mentioning the death penalty. And I said, “That’s the law; it’s not my writing; I didn’t make the law. Whether you’re for it or against it, that’s what it says. The law says he faces the death penalty if convicted. I didn’t say, “I’m going to go out and hurt Obama.” I said, “If he’s convicted, he faces the death penalty.” And I told them right to their faces, “You guys are risking your lives for an imposter.” **
THE POST & EMAIL: What did they say to that?
MR. LAITY: “That’s above my pay grade.”
THE POST & EMAIL: Obama doesn’t seem to have lived the American experience but then purports to be “president” of all Americans.
MR. LAITY: Every time Fox News refers to him as “president,” they’re doing a great disservice. Sometimes I wonder if they do it on purpose, because they say it an awful lot. No matter how many times they’re going to repeat a lie doesn’t make the lie truthful. There’s the apparent Connecticut Social Security number. Adolf Hitler did the same thing as Obama: his real name was “Schicklgruber.” Whoever is the real “Hitler” probably had a good reputation, but Schicklgruber took it and shoddied up the name.
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This post was updated on January 28, 2014 at 2:51 p.m. EST.
Second update: March 17, 2014, 8:40 a.m. EDT.