Michael Patrick Leahy on Birth Certificate and Electors

http://www.michaelpatrickleahy.com/obamapressrelease.pdf


Edited for brevity:

For the first time in American politicalhistory, serious questions have been raised about the birth location of the nominee from a major party. In suchinstances, the burden of proof lies with the candidate. And clearly, Senator Obama has not met that burden of proof. Therefore, he is not eligible for the Office of the Presidency.

”The three types of proof offered by Obama to date are insufficient to establish that he is a natural born citizen. Theproof offered includes:

(1) A digital image of the front of a State of Hawaii certified copy of Certificate of Live Birth posted on the “Fightthe Smears” website in June, 2008.

(2) A physical inspection of the purported State of Hawaii certified copy of Certificate of Live Birth made inAugust, 2008 at Obama offices in Chicago by researchers from the Annenberg Political Fact Checkorganization, a unit of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

(3) A digital image of an August 13, 1961 “notice of birth” in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper.

None of the three pieces of evidence identified above have been verified by Dr. Alvin Onaka, the Registrar andChief of the Vital Records Office for the State of Hawaii, as authentic. Even if the certified copy of the Certificate ofLive Birth is determined to be an authentic document, it does not mean it verifies Obama was born in Hawaii. “Thatpurported certified copy does not have the signature of Dr. Alvin Onaka on the back. It merely has the stamp of hissignature. If it was generated by the State of Hawaii, it was generated by a clerk, who simply typed a certificate number into a computer data base, which contains abstract information supposedly generated at some time byviewing the long form vault copy Certificate of Live Birth submitted to the Department of Health by either thehospital of his birth, or at some time subsequent to his birth by his parents or grandparents.

And Dr. Onaka himselfhas acknowledged in a 2005 speech that the integrity of birth certificate databases needs to be improved. It is withinthe range of the possible that the Hawaii birth certificate data base has been hacked into and compromised.” “You can look at this evidence offered to date and a reasonable person might conclude it is more likely than not thatBarack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961 as he claims.

Such a conclusion, however, does not meet theConstitutional requirement of absolute certainty. The Constitution does not say a person who more likely than not isa natural born citizen is eligible for the Office of the President.

The Constitution says a person must be a naturalborn citizen to be eligible for the Office of the President.”Leahy went on to echo the request of the non-partisan Annenberg Political Fact Check organization that conductedthe physical inspection of the purported certified copy of the Certificate of Live Birth in the possession of theObama campaign. “I agree with Brooks Jackson, Director of the Annenberg Political Fact Check organization, who Iinterviewed both yesterday and today,” Leahy said. “Here is a direct quote from Mr. Jackson, which he gave me thismorning:”"We asked the Obama campaign to consider asking Hawaii officials to release copies of his birthcertificate to reporters, or at least to confirm publicly that the birth certificate he has produced is an official document. That way there could be absolutely no question of its authenticity. But they didn'tthink that was necessary."

“I am simply asking the Obama campaign to do as Mr. Jackson asks them. In my opinion, only the production of thelong form vault copy of Barack Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth by the State of Hawaii and the verification of theauthenticity of this document as it relates to Obama’s birth in Hawaii will establish that he is a natural born citizenand therefore eligible for the Office of the Presidency,” It’s possible that SenatorObama is as inaccurate in his statements about where he was born as he has been about when his parents separated,and the circumstances under which they separated.”

“Any reasonable person looking at the conduct of Barack Obama and his campaign on this matter can come to onlyone conclusion. There is something about the long form vault copy of his birth certificate that Barack Obama wantsto hide from the American people. Either it does not exist, or it is a document that was submitted by his parents orgrandparents and not from a hospital in Hawaii, or it is a document submitted by a hospital in Hawaii and containssome kind of politically embarassing information.”

Hawaii law prohibits the State Department of Health from releasing birth certificates to anyone but the person whowas born or an immediate member of that person’s family.

State law, however, provides for the release of the birthcertificate when ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction.“Since Senator Obama adamantly refuses to do the right thing and authorize the release of the long form vault copyof his birth certificate—which by the way could resolve this potential Constitutional crisis in about half an hour—we are left with legally requiring the State of Hawaii to release the record.”

Both Federal Courts and the State ofHawaii Courts have recently decided that an average voter (Philip J. Berg in the Federal Case, and Andy Martin inthe State case) does not have standing to bring the lawsuit.Leahy believes that Presidential Electors and members of Congress will be found to have standing. “Though I amnot attorney, my discussions with attorneys on this matter persuades me that Presidential Electors and members ofCongress will be determined to have standing by the Federal Courts, and quite possibly the State Courts.”

A successful lawsuit that requires the State of Hawaii to produce and verify the long form vault copy of BarackObama’s birth certificate will have two possible outcomes. It will either confirm his claim that he was born inHawaii, or it will disprove it.“I can tell you that at this very moment there are several very competent attorneys who are seriously consideringfiling such a lawsuit on behalf of Presidential Electors and members of Congress prior to Election Day nextTuesday.

Whether that lawsuit is filed before or after the election, I anticipate that such a lawsuit will be filed,probably in Federal Court, prior to December 15, 2008, the date on which each state’s Presidential Electors meet tocast their votes.”If it is confirmed that Obama was born in Hawaii, then the issue is closed.

If the evidence disproves his claim that hewas born in Hawaii, and if Obama wins enough votes next Tuesday to secure an Electoral College majority, we willsee a political and Constitutional crisis between November of 2008 and Inauguration Day, January 2009 that willmake the 2000 Presidential Election crisis look like child’s play.