HOW CAN ELIGIBILITY BE BASED ON A FORGERY?
by Sharon Rondeau
(Feb. 14, 2017) — A petition to pardon former Lt. Col. Terry Lakin for asking for proof that Barack Hussein Obama was eligible to serve as president and commander-in-chief has surpassed 5,000 signatures.
In December 2010, Lakin was court-martialed and sentenced to six months in prison after challenging Obama’s eligibility given that a number of credible news outlets had reported Obama as born in Indonesia or Kenya rather than Hawaii, as Obama claims.
A highly-decorated medical doctor and surgeon, Lakin served 17 years in the U.S. Army at the time of his court-martial. In 2008, he began sending inquiries through his chain of command and to Congress as to whether or not Obama is a “natural born Citizen,” as is required by Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution.
Most Americans understand, at a minimum, the “natural born Citizen” requirement to mean “born in the United States.” Generally, foreign-born individuals who possessed citizenship in another country are considered ineligible for the presidency.
Receiving no response after two years, Lakin announced that he would not deploy to Afghanistan for a second time unless he could be assured that Obama was qualified to issue the order. At his court-martial, he was not allowed to present a defense, nor had he been allowed “discovery” in the form of Obama’s documentation purportedly held by the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH).
As part of his sentence, Lakin forfeited all pay and benefits and was dishonorably discharged in 2011. He later wrote a book, “Officer’s Oath,” detailing why he made the choice to challenge Obama’s eligibility.
On January 21, the petition in support of Lakin was launched by private citizen Gary Wilmott, which asks the new administration to not only pardon Lakin, but also to reinstate him in the Army with back pay, benefits and restoration of rank. The text of the petition reads:
The former Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin was a highly-decorated Army flight surgeon who questioned whether or not the orders he received from Obama were legitimate. Court-martialed, imprisoned, expelled from the Army and denied pay, pension and benefits, Terry was merely following his officer’s oath and constitutional duty. It is an outrage that this was allowed to happen. Obama refused to answer Terry’s letter and ended up producing a forged birth certificate. Terry who was a medical doctor is a valuable asset to the American military and the fact that his military chain of command and his congressional representatives allowed him to be court-martialed and run out of the army is an outrage for all Americans. This grave injustice needs to be addressed and corrected ASAP.
Since the petition appeared on whitehouse.gov, Obama supporters, colloquially referred to by some as “Obots,” have attempted to make the case that Lakin remains guilty of disobeying military orders regardless of Obama’s eligibility.
The petition can be signed here: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reinstate-lt-col-terry-lakin-us-army-full-rank-pay-benefits-and-pension-immediately
Lakin had asked to see Obama’s original birth certificate from Hawaii without result until his final month at Ft. Leavenworth, when the White House, after several months of Donald Trump’s urging, released an image said to be a scan of a certified copy of Obama’s “long-form” birth record.
The image was nearly immediately declared a forgery by graphics experts, and an unrelated five-year criminal investigation supported those initial findings.
Launched by then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio in August 2011, the investigation discovered the image to be a “computer-generated forgery” and Obama’s Selective Service registration form to be a “hard-copy” forgery.
On December 15, 2016, a third and final press conference was given by investigator Mike Zullo in which he detailed the conclusions reached by two forensics analysts, both well-respected in their fields, of the long-form birth certificate image. Approaching their analysis from two different disciplines, both analysts agreed that the “nine points of forgery” identified as having originated from a different Hawaii birth certificate proved that the whitehouse.gov image cannot possibly be authentic.
Since March 1, 2012, when Zullo and Arpaio reported that probable cause had been found to believe the birth certificate and Selective Service registration form are fraudulent, the news media, FBI and Congress have refused to investigate. Following the final presser on December 15, Arpaio pledged to provide all evidence to “federal authorities” and to Congress before he left office on December 31.
During Lakin’s incarceration, a fund was established to assist his family which remains active. In a January 29 interview with The Post & Email, Terry Lakin Action Fund Trustee Marco Ciavolino said that in mid-December, he had written to a member of Donald Trump’s legal team requesting a presidential pardon for Lakin given that the only documentation Obama proffered to prove his identity and eligibility has been deemed fraudulent by the Maricopa County investigation.
At the time of this writing, the Trump administration has not responded to Ciavolino’s request, although in an interview approximately two weeks ago with Sean Hannity, Trump mentioned that there were “several” pardons he was considering involving members of the military.
Other developments in the Lakin case are expected today.
Also well-versed in website technology, Ciavolino discovered weeks ago that customary security protocols were not in place at whitehouse.gov, which could have accounted for many individuals’ claims of having signed the Lakin and other petitions but never receiving the confirmation link required to register their respective signatures.
Any citizen can launch a petition at whitehouse.gov, but in order for the administration to take action, at least 100,000 signatures within a 30-day period must be collected. That time frame for the Lakin petition expires on February 20.
If Obama was Constitutionally eligible to be on the ballot as a candidate for the president of the U.S., why then did Nancy Pelloci remove that clause on the certification statements that she sent to the 49 states, but left it in for the state of Hawaii? Two different certificates! She should be prosecuted for that fraud.
My recollection is that the military judge prohibited Lakin from stating the reasons for his decision. Since that was the core issue it left him with zero defense. Obama is a cruel, cruel man for doing this to Lakin, a man of honor.
There is absolutely no record of Obama ever using the pdf of his BC to legally establish his eligibility.
On the contrary, Since the pdf first appeared, the main thrust of Obama’s attorneys when arguing that the pdf was not admissible in court has been is that the pdf of Obama’s BC on the White House website was not a product of the state of Hawaii and was not a document certified by the State of Hawaii and that therefore it could not be used in any US Court to prove or disprove the time or place of Obama’s birth.
So far every court that has received this argument from Obama’s attorneys has agreed with it and have either not allowed the pdf posted on the White House site to be admitted into evidence or have refused to consider it in any action against Obama that questioned the legitimacy of his BC. .
Didn’t Lakin plead guilty to disobeying orders? And then dismiss his appeal?