ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 2 VS. ARTICLE II, SECTION 1, CLAUSE 5: ARE THEY BOTH NOT EQUALLY IMPORTANT?
by Sharon Rondeau
(Feb. 16, 2016) — During his release of comments made by Obama at a press conference marking the conclusion of the ASEAN conference in California, CBS News’s Mark Knoller tweeted that Obama had invoked the Founding Fathers in regard to his impending nomination of an individual to fill the now-empty seat of the late U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday in Texas.
“Pres says the system for filling a SCOTUS vacancy should work the way the Founding Fathers intended,” Knoller quoted Obama as the presser proceeded.
Article II, Section 2, clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution vests the authority for nominating “judges of the Supreme Court,” among other government functionaries, to the president, who is the country’s chief executive.
Clause 3 of that section states that the president may make appointments without the approval of the Senate during Senate recesses.
In June 2014, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that Obama had violated that clause of the Constitution in 2012 by appointing four people to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during “pro forma” sessions of the Senate, which the court ruled were not actually times of recess.
Having missed the majority of Obama’s remarks on Tuesday evening, this writer began reporting on the press conference at 5:31 p.m. EST, at which time Obama was providing his opinion as to whether or not Republican candidate Donald Trump is suitable for the presidency, a job Obama described as “hard.”
How the question was asked and by whom will be reported as soon as video or audio is available.
Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a “natural born Citizen,” which many researchers believe means “born in the country to citizen parents.” Obama claims a birth in Hawaii on August 4, 1961, but no hospital there or anywhere has claimed to be his birthplace.
Obama’s identified father is Barack Hussein Obama Sr., who was a student from Kenya attending the University of Hawaii, then Harvard University, on a student visa. He never became a U.S. citizen.
U.S. Supreme Court cases demonstrate that the “natural born Citizen” clause was understood to involve the citizenship of the parents and not just the person’s birthplace.
In response to Knoller’s tweet, The Post & Email wrote, “And so should the eligibility of the president under Article II with authentic documents, not forged,” providing a link to the Maricopa County, AZ Cold Case Posse‘s website wherein lead investigator Mike Zullo can be heard and seen explaining why Obama’s long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration form were found to be “computer-generated forgeries.”
In September 2011, the posse began its analysis of the image at the request of Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio, who Trump congratulated in a handwritten note for being the only individual in the country with the “guts” to tackle the issue.
In 2012, Arpaio and Zullo gave two press conferences announcing and detailing their findings. At the second presser on July 17, Arpaio called upon Congress to launch its own investigation.
While Obama stressed the importance of the “background” of presidential candidates during his remarks on Tuesday, Obama’s is virtually unknown. Zullo has said that there are “gaps” in Obama’s history wherein he seems to have interacted with no one.
Obama’s birthplace has been said to have been Indonesia, Kenya, and Hawaii and has been changed by various parties over the years. Whether or not his mother was married when Obama was born has also been stated inconsistently, including by Michelle Obama.
On April 27, 2011, the White House released what it said was a scan of a certified copy of Obama’s long-form birth certificate. Computer experts quickly denounced it as a forgery.
Trump, who had urged its release for several months prior as he considered running for the presidency, said that he and some of his colleagues would examine it to determine its authenticity or lack thereof. “I hope it checks out beautifully,” Trump said publicly, although during a meeting on April 8, 2011, he told a small group of interested parties that he believed the White House would release a forgery in the near future.
After the image was posted, Trump stated that he would dispatch a team of investigators to Hawaii but has not since divulged what they might have discovered.
In the presser on Tuesday, Obama predicted that Trump would not be elected president, suggesting that Trump is not a “serious” candidate.
Zullo has traveled to Hawaii on several occasions, including to attempt to meet with Hawaii Health Department Registrar Dr. Alvin Onaka, but he was stonewalled by Deputy Attorney General Jill Nagamine.
In October 2012, Trump offered Obama first $5 million, then $50 million, to release his passport and college applications. Both offers were ignored by the White House.
In May 2014, at a press conference at the National Press Club, Trump speculated that Obama either hailed from a foreign country and was therefore eligible for foreign student aid when he attended university, or that he lied about having been a foreign student at the time in order to obtain said aid.
Congress has avoided the subject of the forgeries but is undoubtedly aware of it.
Unsurprisingly, Knoller did not acknowledge our tweet.