When Will the Alabama Supreme Court Rule on Barack Obama’s Eligibility?

NO DECISION IN MCINNISH; LAWSUITS FILED IN VIRTUALLY ALL STATES

by Sharon Rondeau

(Feb. 14, 2014) — On Friday, a personal acquaintance of this writer sent a link to a video produced by the Western Center for Journalism (WCJ) which stated, among other claims, that federal inmate Keith Judd, who ran in the 2012 West Virginia primary against Barack Hussein Obama and garnered a significant portion of the Democrat vote, was relocated in December from a federal prison in Texarkana, TX  to a federal prison in Oklahama.

The video headlines an article dated February 12, 2014 and states that Judd has filed “several lawsuits” challenging Obama’s constitutional eligibility which ultimately could remove him from office.  While it is accurate that Judd has filed a considerable number lawsuits in recent years, it appears that his past pro se cases on other matters have often been dismissed as frivolous.

The video is also posted at exposeobama.com and reposted on various blogs.

Judd remains a plaintiff in a case filed by Atty. Orly Taitz which was filed in California and dismissed by Judge David O. Carter in 2012, then appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on July 3, 2013.

The Post & Email regularly corresponds with Darren Wesley Huff, who is imprisoned at the Texarkana facility operated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.  When we asked Huff on Friday if Judd is still an inmate there, he responded that “Kieth [sic] is here.” Judd and Huff have spoken directly to one another in the past.

The Post & Email then visited the Bureau of Prisons website and used the inmate number provided by Judd on his pro se Alabama lawsuit to verify Huff’s statement.  The following results were yielded:

The voiceover in the video claims that Judd garnered “43%” of the West Virginia primary vote, which Judd stated in his Alabama lawsuit (page 2), but news reports say Judd won 40% or 41% of the vote.

Judd has challenged Obama’s eligibility in Wisconsin, Missouri, Alabama, South Carolina, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska and other states representing himself on the basis of “civil rights.” In Montana, the judge ruled that Judd could not proceed in forma pauperis.

In his Alabama lawsuit, Judd claims that Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” as required by the U.S. Constitution because of his foreign-citizen father and included a printout of the long-form birth certificate image purported to be Obama’s which names Barack Hussein Obama of “Kenya, East Africa,” as his father.  Judd pointed out that while Obama is ineligible, he himself meets the constitutional eligibility criteria for president and included a copy of his own birth certificate and those of his parents, all of which show births in the United States.

Judd maintains that Obama the younger was born “a Citizen of Kenya, East Africa” (page 2) and that preceding his Alabama lawsuit, he challenged Obama’s eligibility with the Alabama Democratic Party but received no response.  Judd names the Alabama Secretary of State, Democrat Party and Obama as defendants.

In his suit, Judd asked why “Obama supporters” are “sensitive” when Obama’s constitutional eligibility is brought into question publicly.

Obama’s eligibility has been challenged since 2008, when lawsuits were filed respectively in Connecticut, New Jersey, California and with the U.S. Supreme court alleging that Obama was not a “natural born Citizen,” as Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires.  Dozens of additional lawsuits have ensued throughout Obama’s occupation of the White House.

An article dated May 9, 2012 at The Daily Beast raises the question of Judd’s eligibility to run for president but not Obama’s.  The article quotes a university professor specializing in election law as having said, “…of the few qualifications the Constitution lays out for a presidential or congressional hopeful, the absence of a criminal record is not among them. Since Judd is incarcerated in a federal prison,…any limitation to his election would be political, not legal.”

The West Virginia Secretary of State reportedly told The Atlantic that even though a state law bars felons from running for office, “We do not have the authority to determine eligibility of candidates. That is up to the courts, so somebody has to challenge somebody’s eligibility to hold office.”

The Atlantic also raised the question of “why the Obama reelection campaign did not challenge Judd’s ballot eligibility; this wasn’t even the first time he’s faced off against Obama, having also appeared on the Idaho Democratic primary ballot in 2008.”

In the unrelated Alabama case of McInnish v. Chapman filed by Atty. Larry Klayman, the plaintiffs argued that then-Secretary of State Beth Chapman had failed in her duty to vet presidential candidates for the 2012 election.  On Friday, The Post & Email was informed by the court that the case, appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court last spring, has not been decided as of this writing.

Included in that case is a lengthy affidavit signed and sworn to by Mike Zullo, lead investigator of the Maricopa County, AZ Cold Case Posse, which declared Obama’s long-form birth certificate image and Selective Service registration form “computer-generated forgeries” nearly two years ago, on March 1, 2012.  A second press conference on July 17, 2012 revealed how the posse had reached its conclusions about the birth certificate.  Rather than investigate, the mainstream media vilified and ridiculed the conclusions reached by Zullo and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Chapman resigned her position last July to reportedly work in the private sector before completing her second term as Secretary of State, after which Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley appointed Jim Bennett to replace her.  Bennett had served a decade as secretary of state from 1993 to 2003 as well as in other public service positions.

As a reason for resigning, Chapman cited the death of her husband two years prior.  She now runs a firm which engages in “political and public relations consulting.”

In Bennett’s Motion to Dismiss Judd’s case dated November 26, 2013, Bennett altered Judd’s argument that Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” read, “… (1) that President Obama is not a United States Citizen (and therefore ineligible to run for election as President), and (2) that Plaintiff Judd is a United States Citizen.”  Bennett then stated that his office is not qualified to determine the eligibility of “Presidential candidates,” that Judd’s claims are “moot,” and that Judd has filed numerous frivolous lawsuits in the past.

On October 15, 2012, the day of Klayman’s initial filing in McInnish, he stated:

Under the administration of Mr. Obama, Americans have learned the ‘hard way’ exactly why the framers insisted that the President be a ‘natural born citizen,’ as the interests of foreign countries have frequently been put ahead of American interests.  It’s time that our courts enforce the law and adhere to the U.S. Constitution. If they cannot find the courage to do this then the judiciary will have failed, much like British courts and tribunals leading up to the American revolution failed to take into account the grievances of the people. When that happened, the rest is history.

Despite Judd’s filings in nearly every state in the nation over the past several years, there is no evidence that any one of them threatens to remove Obama from office, as the video claims.  In his response to Judd’s Alabama filing, Bennett wrote that Judd “has a known and documented history of abusing the legal system.”

In November, The Fogbow stated that Judd had been “released” from the Texarkana facility, which Huff indicated was accurate.  When on Friday we asked Huff, “When was the last time you saw him?” he responded, “Maybe 2 days ago. He was released sometime last year, but they ‘violated’ him, and now he is back. I THINK he’s supposed to be here until October or thereabouts.”

The Bureau of Prisons website confirms an October 14, 2014 expected release date for Judd.

The WCJ video attempted to create a connection between Judd’s erroneously-reported transfer to an Oklahoma federal prison and the death of a former inmate, Kenneth Trentadue, in 1999, by suggesting that Judd would meet the same fate there because of his challenges to Obama’s eligibility.

The Post & Email trusts that the Texarkana facility has provided for Judd’s safety and security as for all of its prisoners, including Huff.

Prior to publication, The Post & Email attempted to contact the author of the WCJ article about its apparent inaccuracies.  Additionally, we contacted Floyd Brown, the owner of the Western Center for Journalism, who responded by thanking us for bringing the matter to his attention.