'Green light' to see Obama's Hawaii files

An attorney who presented evidence to a Georgia judge last week on Barack Obama's eligibility for the state's 2012 presidential ballot believes she now has a right to demand to see his original Hawaii documents.

Obama last April released what he said was a copy of his original Hawaii birth documentation, but a number of imaging, document and computer experts contend it is a fraud.

The original birth documentation could undermine Obama's claim to be a "natural-born citizen," as the Constitution requires. Many of his critics, however, say the birth documentation doesn't matter, because Obama's father never was a U.S. citizen. The Founders likely understood "natural-born citizen" to mean the offspring of two U.S. citizens.

Now California attorney Orly Taitz, who has brought a number of major legal challenges to Obama's eligibility in various courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court, has told WND that when Obama and his lawyer wrote a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp last week refusing to attend the hearing on Obama's eligibility status, they included a copy of the image that the White House released last April.

Discover what the Constitution's reference to "natural born citizen" means and whether Barack Obama qualifies, in the ebook version of "Where's the REAL Birth Certificate?"

They also sent a copy to the court of Judge Michael Malihi, the hearing officer, whose ruling is expected to be made available in the next few days.

That act, Taitz explained, effectively gave the court a copy of the White House documentation, and under ordinary rules of evidence the opposing side is supposed to have access to the original to verify the authenticity of the purported copy.

"They submitted a copy and said this is a copy of the original birth certificate. Now the other party has a right to examine the original," she said.

Her next step was to ask Malihi for a letter to the courts in Hawaii seeking a subpoena for the records. When the judge responded that the issue probably was outside his jurisdiction as an administrative law judge, she received permission to take her request to the Fulton County Superior Court.

An email Taitz posted online showed the court in Georgia carried permission from Malihi to "feel free to petition the Superior Court, if you so choose."

The birth-certificate issue has plagued Obama since before the 2008 election. When concerns arose about his eligibility, his campaign posted online an image of an abbreviated birth record called a "Certification of Live Birth."

At the time, his campaign stated that it was the only document available from the state of Hawaii documenting births, even though other people were able to obtain a long-form document.

It was when the first hardcover edition of Where's the Birth Certificate?" by Jerome Corsi was about to be released that Obama dispatched one of his private attorneys to Hawaii to fetch another document image, this time a long-form "Certificate of Live Birth."

Many experts then concluded it likely was a computer-generated document and not a copy of an original 1961 document.

Taitz told WND that her request to the Superior Court will be to ask the Hawaii court system to issue a subpoena for the original documentation so she can examine it and compare it to the White House representation.

"I have a green light to proceed," she said.

The image of the latest release from the White House:

She explained that the image was sent to Kemp and the judge at the time the attorney for Obama, Michael Jablonski, told Kemp he should simply cancel the hearing, because the president would not participate.

Jablonski told Kemp that "serious problems" had developed in the hearings "pending before the Office of State Administration Hearings."

He said, "At issue in these hearings are challenges that allege that President Obama is not eligible to hold or run for re-election to his office, on the now wholly discredited theory that he does not meet the citizenship requirements."

Jablonski said the judge – who previously rejected Obama's demand to quash a subpoena for him to appear and bring with him his birth records documenting his status as a "natural-born citizen" – has "exercised no control" over the proceeding.

"It threatens to degenerate into a pure forum for political posturing to the detriment of the reputation of the state and your office. Rather than bring this matter to a rapid conclusion, the ALJ has insisted on agreeing to a day of hearings, and on the full participation of the president in his capacity as a candidate," Jablonski wrote.

In a response posted online, Kemp told Jablonski the case referral and hearing was "in keeping with Georgia law."

"As you are aware, OSAH Rule 616-1-2-.17 cited in your letter only applies to parties to a hearing. As the referring agency, the Secretary of State's Office is not a party to the candidate challenge hearings scheduled for tomorrow. To the extent a request to withdraw the case referral is procedurally available, I do not believe such a request would be judicious given the hearing is set for tomorrow morning."

He continued, "I expect the administrative law judge to report his findings to me after his full consideration of the evidence and law. Upon receipt of the report, I will fully and fairly review the entire record and initial decision of the administrative law judge."

He also had a warning about the costs of not showing up for a court hearing.

"Anything you and your client place in the record in response to the challenge will be beneficial to my review of the initial decision; however, if you and your client choose to suspend your participation in the OSAH proceedings, please understand that you do so at your own peril."

But Jablonski said, "We will, of course, suspend further participation in these proceedings, including the hearing scheduled for January 26."

The hearing was held on concerns raised by citizens of Georgia under a state law that allows voters to challenge the eligibility of candidates on the state's ballot. It is the states that run elections in the U.S., and national elections are just a compilation of the results of the 50 state elections.

The state law requires "every candidate for federal" office who is certified by the state executive committees of a political party or who files a notice of candidacy "shall meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the office being sought."

State law also grants the secretary of state and any "elector who is eligible to vote for a candidate" in the state the authority to raise a challenge to a candidate's qualifications, the judge determined.

Citizens raising concerns include David Farrar, Leah Lax, Thomas Malaren and Laurie Roth, represented by Taitz; David Weldon represented by attorney Van R. Irion of Liberty Legal Foundation; and Carl Swensson and Kevin Richard Powell, represented by J. Mark Hatfield. Cody Judy is raising a challenge because he also wants to be on the ballot.

Top constitutional expert Herb Titus contends that a "natural-born citizen" is born of parents who are citizens. That argument also is supported by a 19th-century U.S. Supreme Court decision, Minor vs. Happersett in 1875. The case includes one of very few references in the nation's archives that addresses the definition of "natural-born citizen."

That case states: "The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners."

An extensive analysis of the issue was conducted by Titus, who has taught constitutional law, common law and other subjects for 30 years at five different American Bar Association-approved law schools. He also was the founding dean of the College of Law at Regent University, a trial attorney and special assistant U.S. attorney in the Department of Justice.

"'Natural born citizen' in relation to the office of president, and whether someone is eligible, was in the Constitution from the very beginning," he said. "Another way of putting it; there is a law of the nature of citizenship. If you are a natural born citizen, you are a citizen according to the law of nature, not according to any positive statement in a Constitution or in a statute, but because of the very nature of your birth and the very nature of nations."

If you "go back and look at what the law of nature would be or would require … that's precisely what a natural born citizen is …. is one who is born to a father and mother each of whom is a citizen of the U.S. or whatever other country," he said.

"Now what we've learned from the Hawaii birth certificate is that Mr. Obama's father was not a citizen of the United States. His mother was, but he doesn't qualify as a natural born citizen for the office of president."