Judge David O. Carter today threw out Dr. Orly Taitz's Barnett v. Obama lawsuit against President Obama. This was the lawsuit filed with dozens of plaintiffs, in Santa Ana Federal court, with a judge that seemed to listen patiently to the legal theories of Taitz and co-counsel Gary Kreep.
Read the judge's opinion here.
Essentially, Carter ruled that the courts don't have the power to remove a sitting president — only Congress does — and therefor the case could not move forwards. In addition, most of the plaintiffs had no standing to sue because they couldn't demonstrate they had been harmed.
There are some choice passages in the ruling. We've rounded up a few…
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1. “This Court will not interfere in internal military affairs nor be used as a tool by military officers to avoid deployment. The Court has a word for such a refusal to follow the orders of the President of the United States, but it will leave the issue to the military to resolve.”
Any guesses as to the word? “Treasonous” or “insubordination” would be good bets.
2. In reference to Wiley Drake and Alan Keyes' likelihood of winning
the 2008 Presidential election had Obama not been in the race:
“If there should in fact be a dividing line for that is dependent on
the likelihood of success in the election, then this is not a case
which would hover on that line as Plaintiffs received only
four-hundredth of one percent of the vote. The Court may have already met this entire group of voters at the hearings on this matter.“
3. Just a footnote:
“The inclusion of the First Lady in this lawsuit, considering she holds no constitutional office, is baffling.”
4. Another footnote succinctly eviscerates Taitz's mutated “natural born citizen” definition:
“Plaintiffs presume that the words of Emmerich de Vattel, John Jay, and
John Armor Bingham alone empower this Court to define the natural born
citizen clause. The Complaint conveniently chooses to ignore Congress'
long history of defining citizenship,whether naturalized or by birth.”
5. On American records vs. Kenyan ones:
“Plaintiffs appear to assume that should the Court receive a document
from Kenya, the Court would give credence to this document over the
American birth records of the President and the case would be
resolved. Even should the Court permit the issuance of a letter
rogatory to Kenya, the Court would still engage in a comparative
exercise in which the records of America, which has historically
maintained some of the most credible record keeping practices in the
world, would be contrasted with the credibility of the records obtained
from Kenya. Such an analysis would seemingly favor the records of the
United States.”
6. And then there's Section F, all about Taitz's conduct:
“The hearings have been interesting to say the least. Plaintiffs'
arguments through Taitzhave generally failed to aid the Court.
Instead, Plaintiffs' counsel has favored rhetoric seeking to arouse the
emotions and prejudices of her followers rather than the language of a
lawyer seeking to present arguments through cogent legal reasoning.
While the Court has no desire to chill Plaintiffs' enthusiastic
presentation, Taitz's argument often hampered the efforts of her
co-counsel Gary Kreep (“Kreep”), counsel for Plaintiffs Drake and
Robinson, to bring serious issues before the Court. The Court has
attempted to give Plaintiffs a voice and a chance to be heard by
respecting their choice of counsel and by making every effort to
discern the legal arguments of Plaintiffs' counsel amongst the rhetoric.”
“This Court exercised extreme patience when Taitz endangered this case
being heard at allby failing to properly file and serve the complaint
upon Defendants and held multiple hearings to ensure that the case would
not be dismissed on the technicality of failure to effect service.
While the original complaint in this matter was filed on January 20,
2009, Defendants were not properly served until August 25, 2009. Taitz
successfully served Defendants only after the Court intervened on
several occasions and requested that defense counsel make
significant accommodations for her to effect service. Taitz also
continually refused to comply with court rules and procedure. Taitz
even asked this Court to recuse Magistrate Judge Arthur Nakazato on the
basis that he required her to comply with the Local Rules… Taitz also
attempted to dismiss two of her clients against their wishes because
she did not want to work with their new counsel.”
“Taitz encouraged her supporters to contact this Court, both via
letters and phone calls. It was improper and unethical for her as an
attorney to encourage her supporters to attempt to influence this
Court's decision. Despite these attempts to manipulate this Court, the
Court has not considered any outside pleas to influence the Court's
decision.”
“Additionally, the Court has received several sworn affidavits that
Taitz asked potential witnesses that she planned to call before this
Court to perjure themselves. This Court is deeply concerned that Taitz
may have suborned perjury through witnesses she intended to bring
before this Court.”
7. Finally, Carter hits back at insinuations that he and other judges have been corrupt or unpatriotic:
“Plaintiffs have encouraged the Court to ignore these mandates of the
Constitution; to disregard the limits on its power put in place by the
Constitution; and to effectively overthrow a sitting president who was
popularly elected by “We the People”-over sixty-nine million of
the people. Plaintiffs have attacked the judiciary, including every
prior court that has dismissed their claim, as unpatriotic and even
treasonous for refusing to grant their requests and for adhering to the
terms of the Constitution which set forth its jurisdiction. Respecting
the constitutional role and jurisdiction of this Court is not
unpatriotic. Quite the contrary, this Court considers commitment to
that constitutional role to be the ultimate reflection of patriotism.”
