BORN IN THE USA?
Officer: Lakin case is end of 'rule of law'
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
A retired military officer who pursued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court a legal challenge to Barack Obama's occupancy of the Oval Office says the conviction and sentencing of an active duty officer who raised similar questions signals the end of the "rule of law" in the United States.
Cmdr. Charles Kerchner's legal case, handled by attorney Mario Apuzzo, alleged that Congress failed its constitutional duty to examine the legitimacy of a successful candidate during the Electoral College vetting process on Capitol Hill. The Supreme Court ultimately decided not to hear arguments, leaving standing a lower court's dismissal.
Sign a petition to state elections officials demanding they remove the constitutional cloud over the presidency by requiring documentation of candidates' eligibility.
Now Kerchner has attended, and is analyzing, the military's court-martial of now-former Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, who refused to deploy to Afghanistan because of concerns that Obama consistently refused to document his eligibility to serve as commander in chief.
His comments came in an interview with Sharon Rondeau of The Post & Email.
The judge in Lakin's case, Col. Denise Lind, ordered that Lakin could not raise the issue of Obama's eligibility, could not seek through the discovery process evidence that would support him, could not bring in evidence to the trial and could not bring in the witnesses he sought.
The conviction, then, was assured before the panel of officers ever deliberated the question.
That means, warned Kerchner, "we no longer have a rule of law and a constitutional republic subservient to the fundamental law of the land, the U.S. Constitution."
He explained how Lakin, before publicly challenging Obama's eligibility to serve as president under the Constitution's "natural born citizen" requirement – an issue that remains undocumented – had gone through every available channel seeking resolution.
"Terry had been questioning Obama's eligibility for over two years, and not only did he go to his elected representatives; he used a formal path available to soldiers, filling out a form or writing a letter, to request a congressional inquiry," Kerchner told The Post & Email.
"If a soldier is having some issue with the military chain of command or for any reason feels that he has been unjustly treated, there is the Article 138 where you can directly ask your senior chain of command about it. He also filed another form or letter to request a congressional inquiry; he requested more than once that an investigation be done about Obama's eligibility because as an officer, he had sworn an oath to the U.S. Constitution. He had great doubts that Obama was eligible, and he wanted them to investigate, and they didn't even answer him," Kerchner explained.
"The Congress did nothing. Terry, as a soldier, had a further right to one, and he didn't even get an answer. For example, if you allege that your commanding officer is mistreating you, Congress investigates those allegations. Terry asked for a congressional inquiry because no one in his chain of command was answering his questions, and they didn't answer him. He felt he was being unjustly treated and ignored by his chain of command in their not addressing or answering his questions about the eligibility of Obama to be the commander-in-chief and president," he said in the lengthy interview with Rondeau.
"Not even statutory laws are being obeyed," he said. "Not even regulations regarding congressional inquiries from soldiers are being obeyed. It's strictly to defend one man, a phony, a fraud, the usurper-in-chief, Obama. Our whole system of government, our whole culture has been corrupted and turned upside-down and completely rotted from the inside out to protect this man. All of our laws are being subverted and ignored because they know the answer: he's not eligible."
WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
Some of the challenges question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.
Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.
Several of the cases have involved emergency appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court in which justices have declined even to hear arguments. Among the other cases turned down without a hearing at the high court have been petitions by Philip Berg, Cort Wrotnowski, Leo Donofrio and Orly Taitz.
Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.
Obama wrote in his own book that he was born a dual citizen of the U.S. and Great Britain due to the fact his father was a subject of the British crown when Obama was born.
Lakin announced nearly a year ago that he would not deploy as per Obama's orders until his eligibility to issue such orders was verified. Lakin was stripped of his duties, then court-martialed and now is imprisoned in Ft. Leavenworth for six months.
Lakin supporters have established a fund to support Lakin's legal defense and provide for the needs of his wife and children while he is incarcerated.
Financial contributions should be sent to the Terry Lakin Action Fund, the only fund authorized by Lakin's family. Donate online at Terrylakinactionfund.com using any major credit card, or mail checks made payable to the Terry Lakin Action Fund, PO Box 1116, Bel Air, MD 21014.
Cards and letters, but no packages, can be sent to Lakin at the following address, and should not mention rank: Terrence Lakin #89996, 830 Sabalu Road, Fort Leavenworth, Kan. 66027.
No hospital has admitted Obama was born there, and while state officials in Hawaii say they have confirmed his birth documentation, they refuse to reveal what it states. The type of document posted online by Obama is available to those not born in the state.
Kerchner also said the defense counsel for Lakin should have raised the issue of the so-called Nuremberg defense. That refers to the trials after World War II where Nazi officers explained they simply were following orders, and many ended up convicted for their atrocities.
"I would have brought up the Nuremberg defense and cited the officer(s) tried at Nuremberg who told that court it was not his duty to question orders from the supreme commander, meaning Adolf Hitler, and that your duty is to obey orders, and that man was hanged for that: for blindly accepting all orders from the supreme commander," Kerchner said.
It is up to officers to evaluate orders and follow those that are legal and disobey others, he said.
"And what is a lawful order? That is the officer’s decision to make and ask his superiors and a congressional inquiry to find out if he has a doubt, and he did that, and they ignored him. The Constitution is not a piece of parchment paper down there on display in Washington. It is the fundamental law of the land. The lawfulness of all orders issued by officers and the people above them shall be judged by that law, because his officer's oath is to do just that, to support and defend the Constitution," he said.
For now, hope must rest with Republicans in the new Congress, he said.
"The only thing left is to go back to the political process which failed us the first time and hope that the new Congress, with a Republican-controlled House finally listens to the people and holds a congressional investigation with full subpoena power. We need to force them to do that. They can now justify it by saying, 'The prior Congress made a mistake, but we're not going to do it,'" he said.
He warned that if that does not happen, other repercussions will follow.
"If they don't, the only thing left is John F. Kennedy's words and the Declaration of Independence: 'Those who make peaceful resolution (to paraphrase; he used the word 'revolution') impossible make violent resolution inevitable.' This is not going to stand with the people forever. It's going to boil over at some point, and what they thought they were preventing – violence in the inner cities if he were properly vetted and revealed he was not eligible – will result in and cause far, far, far worse by what they have done by corrupting every institution and system of our government to protect an ineligible man, a phony, the usurper-in-chief, Mr. Zero."
He pointed out that if Obama's eligibility is not fully documented, "not only should Lakin have his conviction expunged; he should be given the Medal of Freedom."
"The truth always wins. If the truth always comes out and Obama is proven to be a fraud, which we know he is, then justice mandates that Lt. Col. Lakin be vindicated, pardoned, and his kangaroo court conviction record expunged from history and a new history written that he did the right thing in the face of adversity," he said.
Meanwhile, Hawaii's new governor, Neil Abercrombie, is promising he wants to find a way to release Obama's documentation to put the story to rest, which appears to be not going away anytime soon.
According to the Supreme Court's own website, there is scheduled to be a conference Jan. 7, 2011, on a case submitted by Orly Taitz.
This particular case has had a long proceeding; it began as a challenge to the legality of the military orders under Obama, whose eligibility to hold the office of president never has been documented to date. While that officer, Capt. Connie Rhodes, ultimately followed her orders, the attorney was fined $20,000 in the case, and it continued its path through the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and now is pending in Washington.
Whether it will fall by the wayside as have other cases on the same issue that have been submitted to the court remains to be seen. But even if this case falls, it doesn't appear the issue itself will fade.
Consider:
* More than a year ago, polls revealed that a bare half of the people in the United States even knew there was an issue over Obama's eligibility but recent polls have indicated up to 58 percent of Americans now have doubts over that issue.
* Fining attorneys, even jailing defendants, as happened to Lakin, hasn't caused the issue to disappear.
* A billboard campaign that simply asks "Where's the Birth Certificate" has appeared in many dozens of locations, and one billboard company that a year ago concluded it was more or less a settled issue now has asked to be allowed to participate in the campaign.
* Various officials have "verified" Obama's eligibility but have declined to document their statements.
* Extensive examinations of the available record suggest Obama likely is, in fact, ineligible.
* There remains a multitude of lawsuits still making their way toward Supreme Court review:
* In Congress, a pending proposal would require all candidates for the office of president to document their eligibility under the Constitution's requirement that they be a "natural born citizen."
* Similar plans are moving even more quickly at the state legislature level.
* And there even are predictions that Congress will take up the dispute.
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