Revisiting the Qui Tam Gambit

by Joseph DeMaio, ©2025

(Feb. 5, 2025) — Now that the slug at 1600 and his intellectually crippled Attorney General, Merrick Garland, have been told by the electorate to “hit the road” and “get out of Dodge,” the time may be ripe to revisit the potential for a qui tam action.

A qui what action?  Glad you asked.

Several years ago, your humble servant posited here and here that one way to get to the bottom of the Deep State’s Best-Kept Secret – the questionable status of one Barack Hussein Obama, II as a purported “natural born Citizen” (“nbC”) eligible to the presidency under the Constitution – was to bring a federally-authorized “qui tam” action. 

Such actions are sanctioned under 31 U.S.C. § 3730.  The purpose of the statute is to allow a private litigant – previously called a “relator” under the statute, now merely a “person” – to pursue and recover damages on behalf of the federal government, sharing in any recoveries, against individuals who may have presented false claims to the government (usually monetary) and which had been wrongfully paid. The thrust of such a claim against now-private citizen Barack Obama would be for, at minimum, the amounts that have been paid to him under the “Former President’s Act,” 3 U.S.C. § 102 (note).  Interestingly, the Act limits the pension benefit to “presidents,” thereby seemingly excluding “usurpers.”

But I digress.

Faithful P&E readers should again review (or read for the first time) the two prior posts linked above to get the full import of what might be accomplished – or precluded – if a “new” qui tam action were to be initiated under a new Attorney General, Pam Bondi.  The applicable statute, like many federal edicts, is an aggregation of byzantine and vague terms, double negatives and conditions, divesting itself of the label “clear.”  Nonetheless, consideration of its utility as a device to discover the reality of Obama’s purported nbC bona fides should not be overlooked. And, by the way, on the bright side, litigant “standing” in the “relator” to bring the lawsuit in the first place is conferred by the statute itself.  Sweet…, no?

In addition, the term “new” is used because an original qui tam action seeking similar (but not identical) relief with regard to Obama was brought in 2010 by one of the original patriots challenging Obama’s nbC eligibility, one Philip Berg…, oddly enough, a Democrat Philadelphia lawyer, as interviewed by the Intrepid Editor of the P&E here.

Mr. Berg’s action failed – or, more precisely, was killed – because the then-serving United States Attorney General, one Eric (“Fast and Furious” Holder filed a “suggestion of dismissal,” as permitted under the qui tam statute, to prevent the Berg complaint from moving forward.  Holder, of course, had been appointed by Barack Obama, so Holder’s barricading of Berg’s attempt to uncover the truth and bore into the issue of Obama’s status as either (a) a “citizen” under the 14^th Amendment or (b) a nbC, was not entirely unexpected.  And the matter then evaporated into the cosmos.

However, when Donald Trump was elected President in 2016, your humble servant again suggested that his new Attorney General, one William Barr, revisit the issue, either as part of a Department of Justice-initiated investigation or as the governmental representative who would neither oppose a private “relator’s” qui tam action or suggest the dismissal of same, as did Holder in Berg’s attempt.  As faithful P&E readers will recall, the response from Barr was: crickets.  Not altogether unexpected, either.

But now, not only do we have a new “sheriff in town,” to wit: “47,” we now also have an Attorney General who seems to possess both the will and the courage to at least examine the issue.  Moreover, we also now have this guy named “Musk” heading up a proposed governmental waste eradication outfit called “DOGE.”  The Department of Government Efficiency has as its announced objectives the restructuring of the federal government and removing regulations in order to reduce expenditures and increase government efficiency. 

“Reduce expenditures,” huh?  Monsieur Obama now receives more than $200,000 annually under federal law, to which sum he may likely not be entitled if he is adjudicated to have been a usurper of the presidency.  This sum, of course, is considered by the Deep State within the Beltway to be something less than merely an insignificant “rounding error.”

If Bondi (like Bill Barr) did not want to bore into the issue herself but would not oppose a private person or “relator’s” qui tam action, all of the discovery tools available in other species of lawsuits – including subpoenas; depositions; requests for admissions; requests to produce; interrogatories; etc. – could be used to finally get to the bottom of the question: Is and/or was Barack Hussein Obama II a natural born Citizen…, or not?  Your servant’s two favorite depositions would be of (a) Mr. Obama, and (b) officials of the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu. 

Moreover, selecting the correct federal jurisdiction for a new qui tam action would, of course, be critical: translation, whatever else, do not file in any federal district court within the Ninth Circuit or the D.C. Circuit.  The best chance for getting a decision which could actually eventually make it to the Supreme Court might be in either the Fifth or Eleventh Circuit.  Food for thought.

Anybody know Pam Bondi’s DOJ back-line number?  Better yet, her cell phone number?