Report: Trump Might Nominate Sen. Ted Cruz for Attorney General

BUT IS HIS CITIZENSHIP STATUS SETTLED?

by Sharon Rondeau

(Nov. 16, 2016) — Various reports citing Bloomberg News on Tuesday stated that President-elect Donald Trump not only met with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz at Trump Tower, but also that Cruz is under consideration for U.S. Attorney General in the new administration.

Cruz was a formidable and bitter opponent of Trump’s during the 2016 primary cycle and was accused by the Trump campaign of having cheated in the Iowa caucus when an email apparently circulated by Cruz campaign staffers reported that Dr. Ben Carson had dropped out of the race.

Over the 17-month presidential campaign, Trump questioned whether or not Cruz was eligible to serve as President of the United States given his well-documented birth in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, at which time he was given a Canadian birth certificate.

In May 2014, Cruz renounced his Canadian citizenship.  On the application to divest citizenship, the Canadian government asks whether or not the person renouncing has, or will shortly have, citizenship in another country so as to preclude statelessness.  The application form is not available to the public; therefore, Cruz’s response to the question is unknown.

Cruz has never presented proof that he was born with dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship nor that he was ever naturalized as a U.S. citizen, as was reported by NBC’s Pete Williams. While several Texas government agencies and departments to which The Post & Email sent FOIA requests for documents signed by Cruz were responsive, the documentation released did not question the applicant as to whether or not he claimed U.S. citizenship.

The issue of whether or not Cruz qualified for president under the Constitution’s Article II, Section 1, clause 5 as a “natural born Citizen,” believed by many to be a higher standard than simply “citizen,” was openly debated in the mainstream media, unlike the identical question as it related to Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 and 2012 amidst reports that he had been born in Kenya or Indonesia rather than Hawaii.

Perhaps complicating the issue for Cruz, his father was not a U.S. citizen when he was born, and his mother’s status at the time of his birth has not been confirmed.  Obama also claims a foreign-citizen father, although Barack Hussein Obama the elder never became a U.S. citizen as did Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.

Following Trump’s victory in the Indiana primary early in May, Cruz and fellow Republican presidential contender John Kasich suspended their respective campaigns.  Eight days later, a source told The Post & Email that he was informed through reliable channels that Cruz’s mother had, in fact, become a Canadian citizen while living in Canada from approximately late 1967 through early 1975. Ted Cruz was born December 22, 1970.

While the Constitution does not require that the president’s nominees for “ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for” also be “natural born Citizens,” it would be unusual for a United States Attorney General not to have been born in the country.

However, President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was born in what was then Czechoslovakia, and other presidential cabinet members have been immigrants.

U.S. Senators and Representatives can also be immigrants if they meet Article I requirements for age and having been a “citizen of the United States” for nine years or seven years, respectively.

Cruz has been a passionate crusader to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” a controversial healthcare law passed in March 2010 without a single Republican vote. At the time of its passage, Democrats held majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

After nearly two years, The Post & Email is still awaiting documents from the US Justice Department from the time when Cruz was employed there during the George W. Bush administration, one of which is an application form which asks if the prospective employee is a U.S. citizen.

Bush’s second attorney general, Alberto Gonzalez, was born in San Antonio, TX to parents who may not have been U.S. citizens themselves.

Following his defeat in the primaries, Cruz announced that he had filed the necessary papers to seek reelection to his U.S. Senate seat in 2018, for which U.S. citizenship would be required.

Cruz graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked for the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.