Update: Eyewitness Report: Mississippi Ballot Challenge Hearing “Went Very Well”

JUDGE WATCHED ARPAIO PRESS CONFERENCE AS BACKGROUND TO THE CASE

by Sharon Rondeau

(Sep. 25, 2012) — An observer of the Mississippi challenge to the inclusion of Barack Hussein Obama’s name on the state ballot for November described in detail the proceedings held in Jackson today between Atty. Orly Taitz and attorneys for the defendants, the Mississippi Democratic Party and the Mississippi Secretary of State.

Judge Henry Wingate, a Reagan appointee, is presiding over the federal case. “He was very methodical and careful in his approach to try to take apart what needed to be done and in what order,” the eyewitness said.  “Before him today, there were numerous motions:  there was a motion for judgment on the pleadings by the Mississippi Democratic Party and the Mississippi Secretary of State; a motion to dismiss; a motion for sanctions filed by the plaintiffs; a motion to remand the case to the state court filed by the plaintiffs; a motion to stay the case filed by the plaintiffs; a motion to strike; and a motion to expedite an evidentiary hearing.  So there was a lot in front of him, and he had to go through all of this, and the first order of business was to rule on the motion to remand back to the state court, because if it was going back to the state court, he wouldn’t need to deal with any of the rest of it.”

The Mississippi Secretary of State’s office has claimed that it “had no duty to determine whether a candidate is qualified to be president before placing him on the party primary ballot” (page 8).

Taitz represents five plaintiffs, two of whom were present in the courtroom.  Others present were Mr. Matheney, the attorney for the Secretary of State; Mr. Begley for the Democratic Party; and Mr. Scott Tepper from California was identified as representing the Democratic Party of Mississippi pro bono was doing a telephonic monitoring of the proceedings. “Actually, he did most of the talking and Mr. Begley did very little,” our witness told us.

We were told by the eyewitness that “a lot of supporters showed up for the plaintiffs from all over the state,” and there were three people who appeared to be Obama supporters.  “The audio was very good,” she said, “and the proceedings were timely and organized, professionally done.”  The witness said that Mr. Begley was ten minutes late, to which the judge said, “Thank you very much for showing up.”  Atty. Begley stated that he was missing something, perhaps his pleadings, but the witness said that “he didn’t speak very much at all.”

The Post & Email had reported in early June that Taitz had filed ethics complaints against Begley and Tepper for having “submitted documents representing forgeries” to the court with the knowledge that they were inauthentic.  An investigative team from Maricopa County, AZ had declared that Obama’s long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration form are “computer-generated forgeries.”

The first person who presented argument was Mr. Matheney for the Mississippi Secretary of State, who opposed remanding the case to the state court.  “This argument went on from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m.,” our witness said.  “This was not any small point.  There’s a process when a case takes on federal character, as when Orly filed her amended complaint with the RICO charges.  All of the defendants have to get together and agree to move the case from state court to federal court.  Unfortunately, they were actually between judges and the Secretary of State requested to remand to federal court from, I believe, the Superior Court when in fact the Supreme Court had its hands on it.  That is what I understood.  So the judge asked, “On what authority are you using to make that argument?”  It’s #1331, a federal question.  So once the case became federal in character, they wanted to move it to federal court and they also have the burden of proof to show that it needs to go there.  The judge they had when it was initially filed in January had recused himself, Judge Coleman, so there was no judge.  So when Orly filed the RICO charges against Obama, Obama for America, Nancy Pelosi, Alvin Onaka, Michael Astrue, Loretta Fuddy – there are eight in total – she was supposed to go ahead and have them served.  What happened was that she took her amended complaint – the one with the RICO charges – and she served them by certified mail.  The Secretary of State argued that the “Restricted” box on certified mail was not checked.  That’s the rule:  you have to check the ‘Restricted’ box.”

Both Taitz and the eyewitness reported that Judge Wingate did not take judicial notice of the short- and long-form birth certificates submitted by Tepper and Begley as they had requested and that Wingate stated that he watched the video Taitz had submitted of her hearing in Atlanta, GA on January 26, 2012 in front of Judge Michael Malihi.

The eyewitness stated that the defendants had 30 days to ask to move the case to federal court, but Taitz was not able to issue the additional summonses needed because “she didn’t have a judge.  They had the wrong court; they asked for it to be moved to the federal court from the wrong court which didn’t even have jurisdiction over it, and the defendants did not seek on their own to go out and look at the other defendants and request consent, even though they weren’t served with a summons.  She also argued that state court can rule on a combination of state and federal statutes and is perfectly capable of hearing a RICO case.  The judge agreed with her on that,” said our witness.

“This may not be the entire argument, but from what I understand, the federal defendants were not served properly and they didn’t receive a summons.  So the Secretary of State and the Mississippi Democratic Party were served, but the defendants’ argument is that the other defendants were not consulted because they weren’t served properly.  Under 1331, it was a federal question and it was their right to move it.  Orly thought they wanted to move it to federal court because they thought it would be more favorable.”

Judge Wingate stated in court that he had watched “most of” the first press conference given by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse in which they announced that there was “probable cause” to believe that Obama’s documentation was fraudulent.  Wingate also said that he had read “all of the briefs” to be discussed that day.

Following the discussion about the venue, the judge granted a 15-minute break.  “He really was very good; there was no problem at all with what the judge did,” the witness said.  “He denied the motion to remand, but I think that if the other people had been served properly, it would have been federal court anyway,” she added.

At 11:15, court reconvened and ran until 12:00 noon, by which time it was established that the case would be heard within Judge Wingate’s jurisdiction.  “He looked at the list of motions before him, and he looked for the ones that had been fully briefed, of which there were two:  the motion for stay and the motion for sanctions.  Orly jumped in and said, ‘Your Honor, the docket shows that you were going to rule on two of my motions.’  He was trying to avoid it, and she nailed him.  One was to expedite the hearing, and the other one was on the evidentiary hearing.  Orly wanted him to rule on that today, but he didn’t.  Starting with the stay of the case.  Orly was asking for a stay of ruling on the other motions until the issue of whether or not the court had jurisdiction was resolved.  The stay of the case became moot because the case remained in federal court.  It was a procedural decision to give opportunity to serve the summonses and get answers from the other parties, and she needed time.  The motion for sanctions was filed by Orly against the defendants’ attorneys.  She contends that they defrauded the court, because at the time they provided the court the short-form and long-form birth certificates, they had the evidence that they were forgeries.”

An affidavit signed by Sheriff Arpaio was included with Taitz’s exhibits.

Atty. Tepper reportedly “started going after Orly” and the hearing “became very contentious for a short period of time.”  After he spoke, the judge took control and let each one speak alternately.  “Tepper said he never asked the court to give judicial notice about Obama being born in the state of Hawaii, but Orly read it right out of his pleading, asking the court to give judicial notice of where Obama was born.  So she nailed him with that,” the witness said.  “Personal attacks were coming from Scott Tepper to her, saying that she was doing this only for political reasons.  She handled it very well and said, ‘Your Honor, I’m asking for evidence; does that sound political to you?'”

The witness reported that there is a still a stay on discovery.  Tepper said that Orly did not have standing in the RICO matter.  The judge established that the RICO defendants must be served properly, to which Taitz responded that she would need three weeks to accomplish.  Taitz told the judge that Obama has not been accepting service, to which Judge Wingate responded, “Serve him properly and then come back and tell me what happened.”

Following the hearing, Taitz went downstairs to the clerk’s office, where she completed six summonses to the defendants who had not been served in the RICO matter.  She also obtained several blank subpoena forms.

A question arose about whether Obama has 60 days to respond as the president, but Taitz stated that she was suing Obama as a candidate, not the president.  “The judge agreed that Obama has 21 days to answer,” the witness told us.

Wingate told the court that after the summonses were served and the next hearing convened in about four weeks, he would “rule immediately” on the motion for judgment from the Secretary of State and Mississippi Democratic Party.

Taitz has flown from Mississippi to Indiana for a hearing on Wednesday on a ballot challenge filed there.  A hearing will be held on October 3 in Topeka, KS following a ballot challenge which was withdrawn prior to a scheduled hearing held on September 17, 2012.

Orly Taitz left a voice message with The Post & Email just before boarding the plane for Indiana.   She said she would be responding to the pleadings mentioned by the eyewitness and another hearing would be held in 3-4 weeks.  “The Tea Party brought a lot of people and that side was full, and the other side had only two or three people, so it was quite obvious where the support is.  I was able to catch the attorneys for the defense in lying and stop what they were trying to do.  They asked the judge to issue a judicial notice of Obama’s birth certificate, saying he was born in Hawaii and that it was authenticated and that he is a natural born Citizen.  I filed a motion seeking opposition to the request of judicial notice asking for sanctions against them for defrauding the court.  The judge stated that he watched the whole video that I submitted of the proceedings in Georgia and the whole Arpaio press conference, so he really knew what was going on.  He read all of the pleadings and watched the video, which was big.  One of the attorneys for the defense, Scott Tepper, spoke on the phone; the other two attorneys were there.  He tried to tell the judge, ‘Oh, no, I did not ask for judicial notice; it never happened.’  He gave a whole tirade, yelled and screamed, and called me names.  I said, ‘Your Honor, he should be sanctioned right now because he defrauded the court.  He specifically states in his pleading that he is asking for judicial notice.  He is also saying that he had no knowledge that it is not valid, while in reality, that is not the case.’  So the judge said, ‘OK, I’m not going to take judicial notice of anything:  not theirs and not yours.  You wanted judicial notice of Arpaio’s affidavit, but for now, I won’t issue judicial notice of either one.’  But I was able to do, at least for now, is to stop the effort to legitimize the forgery that Obama is using, and I was able to place Arpaio’s affidavit at the same level as the verification from the registrar in Hawaii.  This is the first time that any judge has even acknowledged Arpaio’s affidavit, and he actually put it at the same level as the statement from Onaka.  So it wasn’t bad; I was able to inch a little bit closer, and we’ll see what happens next.”

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Editor’s Note:  Mainstream media coverage of the hearing is here.