Exclusive: Interview with CDR Charles F. Kerchner, Jr. (Ret) on His Newest Book

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jan. 10, 2025) — On January 6, 2025, the first quadrennial anniversary of the protest at the U.S. Capitol over the questionable results of the November 3, 2020 presidential election, CDR Charles F. Kerchner, Jr. (Ret) released a new book containing all of the “advertorials” he published in The Washington Times National Weekly Edition between July 6, 2009 through December 23, 2013 contending, in pictures and prose, Barack Hussein Obama II was constitutionally ineligible to serve as president and commander-in-chief.

The full-page advertisements, which came with considerable cost to Kerchner personally, were published at times weekly in the referenced time frame with the expectation that their placement next to the “Editorial” section would attract the attention of members of Congress and other government functionaries.

His fifth book, “Kerchner v Obama & Congress / Petition for Certiorari (10-446) /
To The U.S. Supreme Court – / The Public Advertorial Campaign” bears newly-issued ISBN and Library of Congress numbers and is available for purchase here, here, and here (click graphic on lower right).

In the book Kerchner prefaced the advertorials with a reproduction of the lawsuit, Kerchner v Obama & Congress, he and three other plaintiffs filed on January 20, 2009.  Represented pro bono by the late Atty. Mario Apuzzo, the suit challenged Obama’s eligibility in light of Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution mandating that the nation’s chief executive be a “natural born Citizen.”

As a first-term U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama announced his presidential ambitions in February 2007, almost immediately after which numerous Americans questioned his eligibility because multiple articles, many written by mainstream media outlets, reported him as foreign-born.

Disagreement among constitutional scholars exists as to exactly what the Founders intended with their stipulation of “natural born Citizen” solely for the presidency.  Although birthplace is often considered the first indication as to a potential candidate’s eligibility, some researchers say an individual’s parents’ citizenship is equally important to birthplace, and perhaps even more so.

An avid blogger and researcher, in 2009 Kerchner launched “ProtectOurLiberty.org,” a website dedicated to presenting the history of the “natural born Citizen” requirement while identifying others with questionable eligibility who have sought the presidency, particularly in modern times.

In a 2016 heavily-researched white paper linked from ProtectOurLiberty, Kerchner wrote:

As the end product in Article II Section 1 Clause 5, the presidential eligibility clause⁸ of our adopted and ratified Constitution of the United States shows that somewhat more restrictive term of simply being “born a Citizen”, rather than being simply any “Citizen”, was NOT accepted either as being strong enough to block foreign influence by birth on who would be a future President. And thus those who argue today that being “born a Citizen” is all that is required as to citizenship status to be eligible to run for the office of President are clearly wrong! The founders and framers considered it and it did not make it into the final adopted Constitution or into any of the ratified subsequent first 10 Amendments⁹ put up to help get the new Constitution ratified by the several states. History shows that simply being “born a Citizen” was proposed by Hamilton and it was not accepted.  What can be more demonstrative than that of “originalist” understanding and intent that simply being “born a Citizen” is NOT eligibility enough to be the President!

Our previous interview with Kerchner, published June 21, 2010, provides an introduction to his background and military training as well as his strong personal convictions:

Commander Kerchner served 33 years in the U.S. Naval Reserves as both a Commissioned Officer and an Enlisted person. He enlisted with the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1962 as an E-1. He served two years of active duty as an enlisted person, after which he returned to the U.S. Naval Reserves serving with various drilling select reserve units.

As a drilling member of the U.S. Naval Reserves, he was advanced at various times until reaching the rank of Chief Petty Officer (E-7) in 1970. In 1976 he was commissioned as a U.S. Naval Reserve Officer and was appointed as an Ensign (O-1), serving as a Commissioned Officer for 19 years.  He was promoted to the rank of a full Commander (O-5) in 1992.

He served annually on active duty for training and drilled with various reserve units until he retired in 1995. During his career, he served on numerous types of ships such as aircraft carriers, destroyers, repair ships, salvage ships, and patrol craft.  In addition to his military service, Commander Kerchner holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.A. in Economics from Lafayette College.

Commander Kerchner took a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and feels it is his duty to support and defend the United States Constitution pursuant to that oath.  Commander Kerchner and the other plaintiffs on his case maintain in the Twelve Counts in their lawsuit that the putative president, Barack Hussein Obama, is not a “natural born Citizen” as required by Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U. S. Constitution and that no one in the election process, including the U.S. Congress which had a duty to investigate the charges against Obama’s eligibility (as they did for similar charges against McCain) has fully investigated Obama’s hidden and sealed original records as to his early life and have not vetted Obama’s Article II eligibility to constitutional standards.

On Wednesday, The Post & Email interviewed Kerchner about his motivation for writing the new book and the history behind the placement of the advertorials. Prior to the questions, however, he provided the following statement:

It was published on January 6 to commemorate that day, this past Monday. I picked that day for the book to be released because I think that date needs to be remembered in history, but not for the reason the other side says it should be remembered. The book is, in fact, providing the evidence, in many ways, from many, many years that led up to what happened on January 6, 2021. I believe it was set up by internal agitators. People were so frustrated because of all the shenanigans that have been going on since Obama usurped office and all the people he got into office and what they were doing to political opponents.

Kerchner said he did not have the opportunity Monday to watch the Joint Session of Congress in which the states’ electoral votes were counted and certified.  He observed, however, that as president of the Senate, Kamala Harris did not call for individual objections as was required under the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

A 2022 alteration to the law in response to the January 6, 2021 protest at the Capitol mandates that any objections to the electoral count be submitted in advance by a minimum of one-fifth of the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively. It also reduced the number of conditions under which an objection can be filed to two and “specifies that the role of the Vice President during the joint session shall be ministerial in nature.”

We began our interview by asking, “What was the catalyst for assembling the new book?  When did the idea first occur to you?” to which Kerchner responded:

I didn’t actually plan for the book to come out on January 6; that came later. I started thinking about it back in April of 2024.  I was in my cellar one time and saw a stack of Washington Times National Weekly Edition papers, as they sent me a courtesy copy every time I placed a full-page ad. I looked at the pile and said, “There should be some way I can preserve these and get them in a digital format; otherwise they could just disappear from history. So I thought, “Maybe I should write a book some day, kind-of like a coffee-table picture book.”

As I worked on it, I had to get all those ads, find all my copies in my various email folders and all that.  I collected them all and started working on them. I had to remove the coupons asking for donations, because I didn’t want to publish that in any book. So I edited them out by highlighting them and cut them out.

So I started working on it a little here, there and everywhere.  And then I got sidetracked for a while and put it aside, and then later this fall I decided to start working on it again, and the book started growing in my mind as to what I wanted to accomplish, and it evolved into what it is.

I wanted to present it as more than just the ads, but that would still be the main focus, but I wanted to show the efforts I and others made over the years to expose the usurper and fraud of Obama. The ads did that pictorially, but I also wanted to include my federal lawsuit. One of my goals was to get this in the Library of Congress, where it could be there forever and ever, and very important, major university-type libraries so that a future historian could find this information if they wanted to research what happened to the country during this time in history, whether our country survived as we went through those dark days. With this book, a historian could look at what Obama tried to do and failed, or if the country goes off the cliff, or almost does, maybe somebody could write a book somewhere in the world about how America ended.

I wanted to get it in the Library of Congress, so I thought I had to focus on more of a legal angle, so I used the title, “Kerchner v Obama & Congress / Petition for Certiorari (10-446) / To The U.S. Supreme Court – / The Public Advertorial Campaign.”

The lawsuit was the key to getting it in the Library of Congress in the “Law and Literature” division. I wanted to preserve the fact that this lawsuit was filed and it’s a historic case. Even though I lost on the “standing”’ issue, you should see the number of citations it has from the federal system.

I was the second person who sued Obama directly. Atty. Berg was first, and then Leo Donofrio went after the Secretary of State of New Jersey. I went directly after Obama and Congress after he became president-elect, thinking they couldn’t use the “political question” and say, “It’s not ripe yet; people haven’t voted; the Electoral College hasn’t voted; the Congress hasn’t certified him.”

Please watch for the continuation of our interview with CDR Charles F. Kerchner, Jr. (Ret) in the coming days.