State Attorneys General have “Standing” to Challenge Presidential Eligibility, Researcher Says

by Sharon Rondeau

(Sep. 20, 2024) — On September 11, 2024, Florida citizen and former Marine Theodore T. Moran filed a complaint with the office of Attorney General Ashley Moody urging her to invoke to the U.S. Supreme Court “Article III standing to represent the voters of Florida who feel that the DNC and Kamala Harris are deceiving us by claiming she is constitutionally qualified to represent us as President of the United States.”

Article III, Section 2, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution defines the role of the federal judiciary as intended to “extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.”

Clause 2 reads:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Moran operated the site birthers.org for a number of years and served as a researcher for the late Atty. Mario Apuzzo in the case of Kerchner, et al v. Obama & Congress, et al filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on January 20, 2009 challenging Barack Hussein Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve as president.

“No court of the United States has ever decided the merits of any legal action against a Presidential candidate, President Elect, or sitting President challenging his eligibility to be President based on the ‘natural born Citizen’ requirement of Article II Section 1 of the United States Constitution,” Apuzzo wrote in a Second Amended Brief. “…This action in the form of mandamus is brought against defendant Obama to compel him to prove that he was born in the United States, that he is an Article II ‘natural born Citizen,’ and that he is Constitutionally eligible to hold the Office of President and Commander in Chief…”

A denial in the District Court led to Apuzzo’s appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the lower court’s finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing. Upon appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in September 2010, the high court denied plaintiffs’ petition for a Writ of Certiorari without comment.

Represented by Apuzzo in 2012 as Obama sought re-election, Moran was co-plaintiff with Nicholas E. Purpura in a ballot challenge to Obama’s eligibility following the White House’s publication of an image it said represented Obama’s “long-form” birth certificate but which preliminary findings from a criminal investigation pointed to its being a forgery.

Of the hearing in an administrative law court on April 10 of that year, Apuzzo wrote:

…We argued that Mr. Obama has not met his burden of showing that he is eligible to be on the New Jersey primary ballot by showing that he is a “natural born Citizen.” We argued that he has not presented any evidence to the New Jersey Secretary of State showing who he is and that he was born in the United States. We also argued that as a matter of law, Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” because he was born to a father who was not a U.S. citizen.

Obama’s attorney made a motion to dismiss the Objection in its entirety. She argued that it was not relevant to being placed on the ballot whether Mr. Obama is a “natural born Citizen,” where he was born, and whether he was born to U.S. citizen parents. She said that no law in New Jersey obligated him to produce any such evidence in order to get on the primary ballot. We argued that Mr. Obama under the Constitution has to be a “natural born Citizen.” We argued that under New Jersey law (the state constitution, statutes, and case law), Mr. Obama must show that he is qualified for the office he wishes to occupy and that includes showing that he is a “natural born Citizen,” which includes presenting evidence of who he is, where he was born, and that he was born to two U.S. citizen parents. We argued that the Secretary of State has a constitutional obligation not to place any ineligible candidates on the election ballot. Judge Masin denied Obama’s motion to dismiss and the case proceeded to trial…

Later that day, Apuzzo added to his report:

New Jersey state statutes (N.J.S.A. 19:23-7 and N.J.S.A. 19:23-15) state that a person must be eligible to run for the office he or she seeks. They make no exception for someone running for the Office of President. N.J.S.A. 19:25-3 provides that a presidential candidate does not have to file his or her consent to be nominated for that office. But the statute does not say that such candidate does not have to show under the previous cited statutes that he or she is eligible for the office sought.

Additionally, the New Jersey Secretary of State instructions on her web site to presidential candidates running in the New Jersey primary tell them they must be “natural born Citizens.”

New Jersey statute N.J.S.A. 19:29-1(b) provides that voters can contest the New Jersey election of any candidate who is not eligible for the office he or she seeks.

Upon my request that she so stipulate, Obama’s lawyer agreed during the trial that there was absoulutely [sic] no evidence before the court as to who Obama is or where he was born, including excluding from evidence the internet image of Obama’s alleged Certificate of Live Birth he released on April 27, 2011. The ALJ confirmed that to be the case.

Yet, in his decision, the ALJ said that because he does not have to consent to his nomination it did not matter who Obama is or where he may be born because he has no legal obligation to show that he is constitutionally eligible to run in the New Jersey primary for the Office of President. During the hearing, ALJ had said that even “Mickey Mouse” could run for President.

The outcome of the ballot challenge, Apuzzo added, was the finding of New Jersey Secretary of State Kim Guadagno that Obama did not have to prove his birthplace or constitutional eligibility to have his name placed on the state ballot.

Apuzzo then announced he would file an appeal with the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division.

Since Kerchner and his own legal challenge concerning presidential eligibility were dismissed on “standing,” Moran told us in an interview earlier this week, he concluded that states, represented by their respective attorneys general, have that status with the U.S. Supreme Court, hence his contact with Moody.

“This is what I learned from Mario,” Moran said. “You need standing. If you go to state court, you’re not going to get justice; you’re going to have 50 different judges with 50 different interpretations of ‘natural born Citizen.’ Kerchner was kicked out for a lack of Article III standing. Who gets that? Well, by the Constitution, the states have it automatically. So the person who has that right in the state is the attorney general. They can file a suit or controversy, and they have to be heard or at least denied by the Supreme Court. The opposing candidate, also, has standing.”

Moran’s complaint to Moody reads, in full:

Madam Attorney General,

I have been a Florida resident since 2013 and the reason I am writing to you is that the state of Florida has Article III standing to represent the voters of Florida who feel that the DNC and Kamala Harris are deceiving us by claiming she is constitutionally qualified to represent us as President of the United States. 

I am considered one of the five best people in America for knowing the history and intent of the Framers decision for an Article II natural born Citizen doing a deep dive into Harris’ bio, I am convinced she is not even a citizen of the United States when she was appointed a senator.

The 14th Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Now looking at her bio it would appear that she was born in California, but the phrase ” subject to the jurisdiction” is the key.

While most think that this means the children of Ambassadors are not “subject to the jurisdiction,” but the United States Code, specifically the Selective Service Act carves out another set of people who are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and that class of people are those who entered the United States of non-immigrated visas.

From the Selective Service, “Non-immigrant men living in the United States on a valid visa are not required to register for as long as they remain on a valid visa up until they turn 26.”

From Kamala’s bio both her parents were here in the US, on a nonimmigrant visa (F1) and under 26 at the time of her birth. And while this question has never been decided by our courts, it certainly casts a blazing light on her Constitutional qualifications to call herself an Article II, natural born Citizen.

While Obama had an American mother to hide any perceived lack of natural born citizenship behind, Kamala does not. It is fair to call her out on this after all she is in her own words a great California prosecutor.

After studying this subject for over 12 years I am always pulled back to John Jay’s letter to George Washington, “permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expresly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.” At the very least the 14th Amendment did not “wash” Kamala of the foreign allegiance owed by her parents and thus that foreign (Jamaican and Indian) allegiance was also transferred to her.

Here is the dirty little secret of natural born Citizenship the deep state does not want America to know. And that is the government does not create natural born Citizens, the citizens themselves are the instrument that creates the natural born Citizen. Natural does not mean born or the phrase natural born would mean “born born” and that is obviously wrong. What it does natural mean; it means ‘related by blood,” so a natural born Citizen is someone who is related by blood to a United States citizen at the time of their birth. Too many people confuse natural with native. Natural born is defined as coming from genetics, while native means to come from a location. 

From my experience in both being a litigant and researching this matter against Obama, those with Article III standing are limited to other candidates, nominating organizations (RNC and DNC,) the several states Attorney Generals, and Secretary of States for the various states. 

Madam AG, please excuse this method of contacting you, as your website offered me only a very limited number of methods of contacting you, I picked the one which I thought was appropriate.  Also I respect the critical job you and your staff are doing for the good people of Florida and I am not trying to abuse the privilege of contacting you to present my personal grievances on this matter, but a person who is not Constitutionally qualified to be the leader of this great country can be blackmailed putting every Floridian in danger.  

I also understand that I am liable for charges of perjury if I am making things up or knowing lying, but as I said I have 12 years of research in this very narrow subject and am willing to give this work to you and your investigating officers and can say with confidence that what I am saying to you is true and correct, and nothing I am saying is false with the intention of misleading you.

Finally in closing I understand if you do not wish to handle this subject as the opposition to the Constitution of the United States is vast and from personal experience that opposition will try to paint you as someone who is a racist and does not know the laws of the land. But rest assured not one court of competent jurisdiction (I.e. federal court) has found neither Obama nor Kamala to be Article II natural born citizens, instead any who would claim either is a natural born Citizen is referring to their native citizenship. However if a person with such a disability were to be elected to the highest office in the land, that person would be open to blackmail and pose a real and exigent danger to the good people of Florida.

Respectfully yours,

Theodore T Moran  

On September 16, Moran sent a letter to Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL6) on the issue in which he wrote, in part:

Both you and I have more than a concern that Kamala Harris is not ready to be the Commander in Chief in charge of 2 million men and women in uniform, and we know  that she has the very real potential to double that number of honored dead during any term she seeks as Commander in Chief.  She will never be ready to take on that office and it is not her lack of experience, or her lack of understanding of what the military does and the unique culture each branch brings to the table does not worry me.  What worries me is she simply does not understand Americans, because she is not an American…

A person who claims the place of their birth as the sole source of their citizenship is easily manipulated for their heart does not consider America their home, but as Vattel, a thinker who profoundly influenced the drafting of our Constitution said it simply the place of their birth.  Bribery becomes a business tool, they do not feel a natural connection to the people they are elected to serve so these Americans become resources that they can exploit for their own gain or the gain of those in whom they do depend on, which is often an international cabal of financers that they easily open themselves to blackmail which serves only to tighten the spiral of dependence of treasonous acts and the financial rewards waiting for them to betray the nation that only offered them the opportunity to succeed. In the end people with no vibrant connection to the place of their birth will prove the adage, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is in this environment that dark money seeks out the weakest among us. 

How they do this by grooming treasonous politicians and lawyers to create laws and an environment that destroys this sense of belonging. They do this by changing the meaning of the phrases in our Constitution that promotes this common sense of belonging to a nation, to one of isolation and being alone in a crowd. Take for example what a natural born Citizen meant to our Founders, to what evil people want us to believe today.       

Today these people want you to believe a natural born Citizen is just someone who was born in a country, a place, but when you look at the remarks by our Founders it is easy to see that what they meant was far was a natural born Citizen was born into a national community. Which is why for the first 100 years of our existence you see in the early records of SCOTUS; a natural born Citizen being born in America to parents who were themselves citizens which reflected this belonging to a community.  It was in this unity of citizenship  our founders wanted our Commander in Chief to come from, they wanted someone to know the people, places and customs of America so that the holder of our highest office would always have a natural affinity for…

During our interview we asked Moran his motivation in contacting Moody and Waltz about Harris given that in recent years, numerous presidential candidates with questionable eligibility have run for president, and he responded:

When Obama first ran, I wasn’t for him or against him, but I was excited for him. I thought, “Wow, he’s going to be the first black American ever elected president; we’re going to be able to put a lot of our baggage behind us.” I thought it was going to be pretty cool.

I was under the impression that a “natural born Citizen” was a native born citizen. I wanted Obama to prove he was a native-born citizen because it would have quieted Hillary, General Bill, and a lot of Obama’s early critics.

When he didn’t do it, I started to get suspicious. I first thought, “Maybe he wasn’t born in America.” And the more I started looking at our history and early culture, I started to realize “natural born” isn’t “native born.”

In my studies what I found out is if you take the phrase, “natural born Citizen,” what’s the object of the phrase? “Citizen,” of course. They wanted somebody who was a citizen from birth; then the other part is “natural.” What does “natural” mean? That basically means that you’re a natural citizen in the sense that you belong to the community in its most maximum form. Then reading Jay’s letter I realized that what he was talking about was “allegiance.”

“That was John Jay’s July 25, 1787 letter to George Washington?” we asked.

Yes, when he said not to allow foreigners into the administration, he wasn’t talking about Frenchmen; he wasn’t talking about English persons per se; he was talking about the allegiance of these people; he was saying we need someone whose allegiance is 100% with the United States of America to be the commander-in-chief, and that’s the only office he pointed to, because that’s the office in which treason can be the most damaging.

Moran has expanded his efforts to elevate the “natural born Citizen” question to an open, public conversation to be related in a follow-up article in the coming days. – Ed.