Appeal: Judge trashed rules to attack Sheriff Joe

A federal judge deliberately broke the rules, potentially benefiting a relative financially, overlooking and discounting his wife's statements about his improper bias, and improperly communicated with other court officials about a case to punish "America's toughest sheriff," Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona.

All this according to an appeal of G. Murray Snow's ruling by Arpaio, who retired from law enforcement at the first of this year.

However, his retirement didn't come until he held a news conference to release evidence that the document Barack Obama claimed was his long-form Hawaiian birth certificate a forgery.

The evidence includes the finding of independent analysts that the document Obama released was copied, in part, from another Hawaiian birth document belonging to another individual.

Arpaio, who launched the investigation at the request of constituents – has insisted he wasn't investigating whether Obama was eligible to hold the office of president, the only one for which the Constitution requires the candidate be a "natural born citizen."

The claims now being submitted to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals come in a case brought by federal prosecutors against Arpaio and others for allegedly profiling individuals who were stopped by his deputies.

The result of the case before Snow is a recommendation that Arpaio be investigated for criminal contempt of court.

And one of the issues that suggests his rulings should be thrown out and the case launched again before another judge is one on which WND reported in 2015.

That was when Snow was asked to take himself off the case, and he refused.

It was revealed, from a witness, that "Judge Snow's wife announced to the Grissom family, as acquaintances, in a Someburros restaurant in Arizona that … Judge Snow … was determined to conduct the litigation … in such a way as to ensure that Sheriff Joe Arpaio would not be re-elected as sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, in 2016."

Arpaio lost the 2016 election.

The briefing said several witnesses confirmed the conversation.

A statement released with the motion for recusal in 2015 said: "Judge Snow has unethically turned the case into a personal vindictive 'witch-hunt' to allegedly cover up his wife's statements quoting the judge as intending to harm Sheriff Joe Arpaio's chances for reelection in 2016 as sheriff of Maricopa County through the contempt proceedings which Judge Snow has been holding."

The case was filed in 2007 by Latinos who alleged the sheriff's office profiled them in traffic stops. Arpaio and others in the office eventually agreed to a civil penalty and a change in policy, but Snow wasn't satisfied, insisting on a court "monitor" for the office.

The appeal charges that Snow had improper communications with the court-ordered "monitor" for the sheriff's office, allowed his brother-in-law to potentially benefit from his rulings and glossed over the accusations that had come from his wife: that he was biased against Arpaio.

"Having rejected the offer to consent to civil contempt and the facts ... Snow conducted a 21-day contempt hearing," the appeal explains.

But Snow, whose hearing also resulted in a civil contempt citation, also went inside the sheriff's department to overrule internal investigations that didn't turn out the way he wanted, the appeal explains.

The appeal also charges Snow had improper "ex parte" communications with the monitor about the sheriff's office and cites the fact that Snow's brother-in-law was an equity partner in the law firm representing the plaintiffs in the case.

"Judge Snow knew that his brother-in-law was a Covington partner and understood that this relationship raised a serious recusal issue. Nevertheless, he chose not to inform the parties of the conflict. Instead, he privately decided to remain on the case and keep the conflict confidential," the appeal states.

He initially awarded $92,705 to the firm and later approved $3.4 million, the appeal says.

The appeal argues that Snow's off-the-record communications with a sheriff's office monitor alone is enough to require action in the case.

"These communications thus require reassignment standing alone, and all the more so when viewed alongside the cumulative evidence that Judge Snow 'hated' Arpaio and sought to drive him from office, as well as the additional conflict involving Snow's brother-in-law," it states.

"When a judge engages in ex parte communications about the merits of a case, the remedy is clear: that judge may not continue to preside over the case, and the judge's prior rulings must almost always be vacated," the appeal said.

Armie Gonzalez, contacted by WND in Snow's courthouse chambers, told WND, "We don't talk to reporters."

The appeal also argues that Snow had no authority to order the "wholesale regulation" of the sheriff's office internal operations.

It says, secondly, Congress "has required disqualification whenever a judge … 'has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.'"

Whatever the result of the Obama administration's pursuit of Arpaio's office activity, he will remain known as the man who ordered an investigation of Obama's birth certificate.

He recently schooled reporter John Hook of Phoenix Fox affiliate KSAZ-TV on the issue, responding, "Good question" when Hook asked about what Obama's motive would be for a false document.

"We just proved – again – that is a fraudulent document," Arpaio said. But he pointed out that his investigation didn't get to the point of grilling any suspects about why it was forged.

When Arpaio held a news conference in December to reveal the finding of his investigators and experts that the document image released by Obama is a fraud, the establishment media were almost completely silent.

Hook repeatedly asked Arpaio why he should bother with an investigation if Obama's presidency is not going to be affected.

The former sheriff said that never was the focal point: It was about fraud and forgery.

"Someone should be investigated," he said. "They violated a law."

Hook suggested there might have been a reference to Obama being a Muslim on his original documentation.

"I have no idea what would have been the motive," the sheriff said. "The motive could have been he doesn't have a birth certificate."

See the interview:

Carl Gallups, a former law enforcement officer, author, commentator and radio host who was deputized for limited communications responsibilities by Arpaio, explained why the forgery matters.

He suggested Americans should ask why the document was forged and why it was posted on a government website as real.

"The answers aren't good," he said.

"If your home had been burglarized eight years ago and then was continually burglarized over that eight years and then you discovered who it was … and then police showed up and told you, 'Oh well, it's too late now he already got away with it,' … what would you say?"

See his comments:

WND reported last week that even though it's been eight years since Obama was elected president amid doubts about his eligibility to hold the office, when dozens of lawsuits challenged him, and even some members of Congress expressed concern, the latest Economist/YouGov poll indicates that fully one-third of Americans don't believe the story promoted by the Obama administration, that he was born in Hawaii.

Specifically, 12 percent of all respondents say the statement "President Obama was born in Kenya" is definitely true, and another 24 percent say it is "probably true."

That includes 20 percent of Democrats who place themselves in those two categories, 39 percent of independents and 52 percent of Republicans.

It was Arpaio's investigation, the only formal review of Obama's birth certificate, that found the document to be a fraud.

WND reported when the lead investigator for Arpaio's team said Hawaii officials never confirmed the document's validity.

The information on the birth certificate was confirmed but not the document itself, said Mike Zullo, and that raises serious questions.

Zullo's team concluded it is not a copy of any original Hawaiian document, and while the investigation did not address whether Obama is a "natural-born citizen," as the Constitution requires for presidents, or the political implications of such a forgery, they noted it certainly raises many questions going forward.

Their evidence, they say, showed how the digital images on the document released by Obama in a White House news conference in 2011 were copied from another document.

Zullo then explained Hawaiian officials engaged in a carefully parsed campaign to affirm the information but never the long-form birth certificate itself.

His comments came in an interview on the Hagmann Report, where he was joined by Gallups.

Zullo explained the investigation found that some of the images on the Obama document apparently were copied from an original birth certificate from the same time period that belongs to a woman named Johanna Ah'nee.

In the interview, Zullo said state officials at one point, in a case in Mississippi over Obama's document and eligibility to be president, stated, "The information contained in this certification of live birth, published at WhiteHouse.gov ... and reviewed by me on this date ... a copy of which was attached with your request, matches the information contained in the original certification of live birth for Barack Hussein Obama on file with the state of Hawaii Department of Health."

But he pointed out that in 2009, one official said she'd seen the Obama document in a bound book. But then in 2010, it couldn't be found by the governor.

Then, Zullo said, officials came up with a story about finding it an archive, describing it as half written, half typed.

"What that tells you is there was no birth certificate in the bound volume in 2009, and she changes in two different statements from 'I saw the original certificate' to 'I saw the original records. Plural.'"

"The analysis they had to do was to manipulate Hawaii statutes to get him a birth certificate. I don't believe that the document his counsel picked up looked anything like what's displayed at WhiteHouse.gov," he said.

He said the logical explanation is that Hawaiian officials amended Obama's birth certificate, which is legal, but then had to hide it since state law requires an "amended" reference. After that document was buried, the "information" could be verified and a computer file could be released of the later document, which has become known now as the original.

"What Hawaii was doing is answering the question for verification in lieu of certification, saying we are verifying the information contained in the document. We're not verifying that that's the document we released."

"Legally honest," Zullo said. "Intentionally misleading."

The interview:

WND reported after the announcement that investigators are working to transfer the evidence to members of Congress.

Zullo told WND the evidence could be used in support of a Presidential Transparency Act, which would give secretaries of state across the nation the authority to investigate candidates with suspect qualifications.

"This is what we have learned. Every secretary of state is powerless to investigate a candidate," he told WND. "They have to take everything on face value."

That means a candidate whose qualifications are questioned cannot be reviewed by state secretaries of state, who run the elections

Zullo told WND that could be a very easy fix for the controversy that developed around Obama's document.

The issue is that the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a "natural-born citizen" but does not define the term. Scholarly works cited by the Founders defined it as a citizen at birth, born in the country to two citizens of the country, or merely the offspring of two citizens of the country.

The birth certificate Obama displayed on the White House website as "proof positive" of his eligibility states he was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father.

Some immediately pointed out alleged anomalies, questioning its validity, while others argued it also could prove his ineligibility because his father was not a citizen. Some of the lawsuits over the issue argued Obama was a dual citizen at birth through his father, contending the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born citizens.

Get an autographed copy of the now historic, No. 1 bestselling book that forced Barack Obama to release his challenged “birth certificate” in 2011 and get the whole story about his contested constitutional eligibility.

Eventually, just as the No. 1 bestseller "Where's The Birth Certificate?" was combining with a challenge at that time from Trump to force Obama's hand, Obama held a White House news conference to release a copy of his birth certificate.

Now the only official law enforcement investigation ever done into the Obama birth certificate has concluded it is "not authentic."

See a video prepared by the investigators and released at a news conference:

Jerome Corsi, Ph.D., WND senior staff writer and author of "Where's the Birth Certificate?" was credited by sheriff's officials with contributing to the investigation.

Corsi said Zullo and Arpaio "have done the United States a heroic service demonstrating by forensic analysis that the long form birth certificate produced in a White House news conference on April 27, 2011, as Barack Obama's authentic birth certificate is a forgery."

"The nine points of forgery between the Johanna Ah'nee birth certificate and Obama's [long-form birth certificate] prove convincingly that the Ah'nee birth certificate was the source document from which the Obama LFBC was created."

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Jerome Corsi

Corsi said Arpaio's five-year effort "vindicates the extensive research WND conducted over years to bring this issue to the attention of the American public."

The sheriff's video said there were nine images on the Obama birth certificate that appear to be identical to, and copied from, another birth certificate issued in Hawaii just days after his birth, that of Johanna Ah'nee.

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The copied items include the word "Honolulu," "Oahu" twice, three different Xs and two time stamps. The identical nature of the Xs raised serious questions since they would have been applied to original documents by moving a typewriter carriage and roller at the time.

Explained the investigator on the video:

Doesn't it just make sense that Alvin Onaka's stamp and the April 25th date stamp were lifted from someplace also? Ask yourself this question. If anyone presented you with a document in your life that was this suspect would you readily accept it or would you begin an intense vetting, be it a house title, a car title, a piece of currency, anything? Would you accept something this suspect if presented to you in your life? If you answered no, then ask yourself a second question, don't the American people have a right to vet the documents that they are presented by public officials.

One of the experts who assisted in the investigation was Reed Hayes, a court-qualified handwriting and document examiner, who runs a business in Hawaii. He is on the board of the Scientific Association of Forensic Examiners and has been in business nearly 40 years.

Forlabs, an Italian company that specializes in extracting information from multimedia files, also produced the results.

"We had two experts from two countries in separate disciplines of forensics that came to one conclusion: Barack Obama's long form birth certificate it not authentic," the report said.

During the news conference, Zullo quoted from the investigation by Hayes: "The (nail in the coffin) that proves that Certificate of Live Birth is inauthentic is the exact lineup of numerous entries on both [certificates]."

He said the experts likened the evidence to being as reliable as a fingerprint.

Arpaio said he, like Zullo, at the outset was ready to verify the document as valid and drop the issue.

"Five years ago I said one thing, show us the microfiche, the birth certificate and we'll all go home," he said.

But he couldn't because of the evidence.

He confirmed plans to turn the results over to the federal government and Congress.

"Maybe some members of Congress will hold some hearings, open to the public regarding this matter. … If they can hold hearings … on underinflated footballs, why can't you hold one on this?" he said. "Look at our evidence, just look at it."

He said at the news conference that he was withholding some "sensitive" information so that the next step could be taken.

But he called it a "fake, fake birth certificate."

The evidence

The sheriff's office concluded: "It is the opinion of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office that the birth certificate on your right, belonging to Johanna Ah'nee, was in fact used as a source document in the digital creation of Barack Obama's long form birth certificate."

"What are the odds that two stamps in two separate boxes stamped by hand … days apart would have the exact same angle?" the investigators ask.

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"It should be pointed out these stamps were looked at by two separate document examiners in two forensic disciplines on two continents," the video explains.

WND reported when the news conference was announced how the issue had badgered Obama from before his first inauguration until well into his second term. Now, apparently, it's raining on his legacy.

WND reported Obama explained he decided to release it because the Internet "chatter" was becoming a "distraction."

At the time, the Washington Times described Obama as "visibly frustrated" and noted that a recent CBS News-New York Times poll showed 45 percent of registered Republican voters believe Obama was not born in the U.S.

President Obama

But while the issue became known in liberal and left-leaning circles as the biggest "conspiracy" theory of all time, some document experts questioned the validity of the birth certificate Obama released. The question was posed, unsuccessfully, to the U.S. Supreme Court many times.

In 2012, Arpaio held a news conference that concluded there was probable cause to believe the document Obama released as an official government document is a computer-generated forgery.

Arapaio, known for his strict enforcement of immigration laws, commissioned the investigative team after local citizens presented him with a petition expressing concern that Obama might not be eligible for Arizona's presidential ballot.

The sheriff even deputized, for information purposes, preacher, pastor, author, radio host and former law enforcement officer Carl Gallups of the PPSIMMONS blog in his pursuit of the truth.

"This investigation and its forensic conclusions in my opinion will vindicate a lot of people. That vindication includes the sheriff and his investigator of course but also president-elect Donald Trump. It also vindicates millions of Americans who dared to ask questions about this nefarious birth certificate and have been lampooned and marginalized by certain members of the press and other operatives for doing so. The investigation also vindicates those in the press who did have the guts to speak to this and to spend time investigating it, like WND," Gallups said.

"I have a feeling that this matter is not over. Not by a long shot. I cannot imagine that authorized federal authorities will now not step in and investigate this matter to its conclusion."

Investigators at that time they believed forgers committed two crimes. First, they said it appeared the White House fraudulently created a forgery that it characterized as an officially produced governmental birth record. Second, the White House fraudulently presented to the residents of Maricopa County and to the American public at large a forgery represented as "proof positive" of President Obama's authentic 1961 Hawaii long-form birth certificate.

The investigators also said they had developed credible evidence that Obama's Selective Service card was a forgery, based on an examination of the postal date stamp on the document. Also, records of Immigration and Naturalization Service cards filled out by passengers arriving on international flights originating outside the United States in the month of August 1961, examined at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., were missing records for the week of President Obama’s birth.

Arpaio said then a "continuing investigation" was needed, and his investigators set to work.

Zullo has noted that Hayes, a document examiner who has served as expert witness for Seattle law firm Perkins Coie – the firm that flew an attorney to Honolulu to personally deliver two paper copies of the birth certificate to the White House – has concluded in a signed affidavit that the document posted on the White House website is "entirely fabricated."

Also, at the time Obama was born, only a short time after Hawaii was admitted as a state, there were a number of ways a Hawaiian birth certificate could have been obtained without the person having been born in Hawaii.

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Among the many records the Obama camp has refused to release are the marriage license of his father (Barack Sr.) and mother (Stanley Ann Dunham), name-change records (Barry Soetero to Barack Hussein Obama), adoption records, records of his and his mother's repatriation as U.S. citizens from Indonesia, baptism records, Noelani Elementary School (Hawaii) records, Punahou School financial aid or school records, Occidental College financial aid records, Harvard Law School records, Columbia senior thesis, Columbia College records, record with Illinois State Bar Association, files from his terms as an Illinois state senator, his law client list, medical records and passport records.