An attorney representing Barack Obama has argued in court that the long-form birth certificate image released by the White House nearly a year ago should not be placed into evidence.
It was April 10 at a three-hour eligibility hearing before a New Jersey administrative law judge that Alexandra Hill made the argument.
Hill, legal counsel representing Obama’s re-election campaign, argued that New Jersey law does not require Obama to present a valid birth certificate to establish his qualifications under Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution and be placed on the New Jersey Democratic Party primary ballot.
Hill repeatedly explained to Judge Jeff S. Masin, “We do not believe the president’s birth certificate is relevant to this case.”
Agreeing with Hill, Masin ruled in a written opinion the same day that New Jersey law does not require Obama to produce any proof he is eligible to be president to be placed on the primary ballot.
Noting that New Jersey law allows a nominating petition endorsing a particular person for president to be filed without the consent of the person endorsed, Masin said, “There is no obligation upon the person endorsed to prove his or her qualification for office.”
At the hearing, Masin prevented petitioner’s counsel Mario Apuzzo, who has argued a number of eligibility cases in court, from placing Obama’s birth certificate into evidence. Nor was Apuzzo allowed to call to the stand a witness willing to offer expert testimony that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery.
Is Obama ready to throw the birth certificate under the bus?
“What is emerging in the various state legal challenges to including President Obama on the presidential ballot appears to be an attempt by the White House to divorce itself from the Obama long-form birth certificate released,” said Mike Zullo, the lead investigator in Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s law enforcement investigation into Obama’s birth certificate and eligibility to be president.
Challenges to Obama’s name on the 2012 election ballot have appeared in more than half a dozen states already.
At a press conference in Phoenix on March 1, Arpaio announced his law enforcement investigators had established probable cause that Obama’s birth certificate and his Selective Service Registration forms are forgeries.
Zullo questioned why the White House did not instruct Hill to champion the birth certificate as legitimate.
“The White House appears to be acting as if the Obama birth certificate is of no consequence in establishing the fact of Obama’s birth,” Zullo continued.
“Instead of producing the birth certificate to the New Jersey secretary of state and arguing to Judge Masin that the document was legitimate, Obama’s legal counsel did everything she could to keep the document from coming into evidence. Why?”
Reviewing the three-hour court hearing, it is clear Hill remained adamant on the birth certificate being irrelevant in New Jersey.
Hill affirmed to Masin in response to a direct question from the bench that Obama’s birth certificate had never been presented to the New Jersey secretary of state to establish his eligibility, and she affirmed that the Obama re-election campaign had no intention of doing so.
At one point in the hearing, Masin, apparently agreeing with Hill’s argument, dramatically explained to Apuzzo that Obama’s birth certificate was not at issue in the case.
“I have nothing before me that I can look at and can say, ‘Okay, this is what has been produced as his [Obama’s] birth certificate,'” the judge said from the bench.
“There is nothing here,” he continued, referring to the birth certificate. “The campaign has not produced me anything, and I assume you’re not planning on doing that. The campaign hasn’t shown me anything on the Internet. There’s no birth certificate that has been presented to me – good, bad, indifferent, real, forged, certified, anything – it’s not here.”
Apuzzo pressed to be put on the record a stipulation by White House counsel that the Obama campaign was not utilizing the long-form birth certificate as proof that Obama was born in Hawaii or as proof he was qualified to be president as a “natural born citizen” under the Constitution.
In response, Hill repeated she had no intention of presenting Obama’s birth certificate to the court.
“It’s not here,” she told Masin. “I don’t have it.”
“There appears to be no affirmative requirement that a person endorsed in a nominating petition for the presidency present to the Secretary of State any certification or other proof that he is qualified for the office, at least not at the time when nominating petitions are to be accepted or rejected by the secretary,” Masin wrote in his decision.
“In this matter, as the petitioners’ objection is that Mr. Obama has not provided the secretary with proof of the place of his birth by means of a birth certificate or otherwise, the lack of any obligation on his part to do so means he has not failed to act in accordance with the applicable law.”
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Previous stories:
Fox News host urges Obama to release transcript
Call to congressional action on eligibility
High court justice: Obama birth certificate fishy
Russian media expose Obama birth ‘forgery’
Media blackout on Obama eligibility near-total
Mailman discouraged from telling Obama story
U.S. military purging ‘birthers’?
Immigration records missing for week of Obama’s birth
Sheriff Joe: ‘Tons’ more shocking info on Obama
O’Reilly: My probe better than Sheriff Joe’s
Donald Trump: Say it is so, Sheriff Joe
Sheriff Joe to Eric Holder: ‘Prove it!’
Arpaio: ‘Probable cause’ Obama certificate a fraud
What does law say about Obama’s eligibility?
Alinsky-style leftist ramps up effort to oust Sheriff Joe
100,000 line up to back Sheriff Joe
Obama backer arrested for death threats against Sheriff Joe
Justice Department blinks in battle against Sheriff Joe
Anti-Arpaio protesters ousted from meeting
Another protest against Sheriff Joe fails
Obama’s harassment of Sheriff Joe
‘Resign now’ protest against Sheriff Joe fizzles
Sheriff Joe targeted for ouster
Sheriff Joe ‘suspicious’ of motive behind Obama attacks
Sheriff Joe to Obama: I’ll keep doing my job
Arpaio gets death threats over Obama investigation
Sheriff Joe on Obama eligibility probe: ‘Where there’s smoke … ‘
