Agents pay visits to those who question Obama's eligibility
Posted: January 12, 2010
10:08 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
 Secret Service agent (photo:www.secretservice.gov) |
In blogs
,
interviews and e-mails, "birthers" around the country are reporting
surveillance and visits from the U.S. Secret Service, whose agents have
questioned – or, as some report, intimidated – them over their
insistence that Barack Obama prove his constitutional eligibility to
serve as president.
As WND reported,
Stephen Pidgeon, an attorney for Washington state plaintiffs
challenging Obama's eligibility, grew suspicious in March when his wife
and coworkers reported being shadowed by police and three, black SUVs.
"We are definitely under surveillance and it's coordinated with Homeland Security," Pidgeon alleged.
In November, Dale Laudenslager, a member of the American Grand Jury movement's attempt to have Obama indicted for fraud and even treason, reported on The JAG Hunter blog more direct confrontation: an unannounced home visit by a Pennsylvania state police officer and two Secret Service agents.
"They came in regard to the criminal complaint I sent to the FBI
and the fact that [Obama] is going to be in a town very close by,"
Laudenslager writes. "I told them I had no violent intentions, but we
do intend to remove [Obama] from office through the court system. I
handed them the AGJ presentments. I told them they have been mailed or
hand delivered to courts and public officials all over this country.
They seemed satisfied, took a copy of the presentments, left their
cards and left."
Orly Taitz, perhaps the best known of the attorneys challenging
Obama's eligibility in several court cases around the country, told the
news site Mother Jones, "A number of my supporters had visits from
Secret Service, from different agencies, INS, Homeland Security. There
are a whole number of people who got these visits to intimidate and
harass them."
The American Grand Jury website reports an email from Carl Swensson, one of its leaders in Georgia:
"I was paid a visit by the Secret Service today," Swennson
reportedly wrote. "They were cordial and asked questions about my
motives and my basis for our actions, which I happily relayed."
The email, however, welcomes and celebrates the visit: "This is
GOOD news," it states. "We are getting the message to the powers that
be, and they are aware of our efforts. Their concerns are related to
what happens if the American people are summarily ignored."
In an interview with Mother Jones, Swennson described the demeanor of the agents who visited him:
"They said they had to make sure anyone who put forward this
information wasn't a physical threat to the president," says Swensson.
"They were doing their job. They were professional. They tried to
dissuade me from what I was doing, but I wasn't going to have anything
to do with that."
WND contacted the Secret Service and spoke with the agent
Laudenslager reports visited him in Pennsylvania, but the agent
explained he was not permitted to comment.
Malcolm Wiley, an official spokesperson for the agency told
Mother Jones the Secret Service is not interested in the issue of the
Obama's citizenship, but could be alerted by individuals who
demonstrate "an unusual direction of interest" in the sitting
president.
"Our mandate is to protect the president of the United States," he said.
WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status
as a "natural born citizen" brought by people who question Obama's
eligibility to serve as president for a number of reasons but who are
nonetheless frequently lumped together into the group called
"birthers."
The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person
except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at
the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the
Office of President."
Some of the lawsuits question whether Obama was actually born
in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's
American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his
birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the
time.
Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through
his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom
at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases
contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from
qualifying as natural born.
Adding fuel to the fire is Obama's persistent refusal to
release documents that could provide answers and the appointment – at a
cost confirmed to be at least $1.7 million – of myriad lawyers to
defend against all requests for his documentation.
 "Where's The Birth Certificate?" billboard at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Las Vegas Strip |
The "certification of live birth" posted online and widely
touted as "Obama's birth certificate" does not in any way prove he was
born in Hawaii, since the same "short-form" document is easily
obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true "long-form" birth
certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth
hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove
Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release
for public or press scrutiny.
Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine
whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president
as a "natural born citizen," no controlling legal authority ever sought
to verify Obama's claim to a Hawaiian birth.
 |
Related offers:
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Judge dismisses California eligibility challenge
9th Circuit asked: Do courts enforce Constitution?
Does eligibility court clerk have ties to Obama?
Appeal filed in Obama eligibility argument
Judge tosses eligibility case against Congress
Plaintiff: Courts must hear eligibility arguments
Judge sets 'final' calendar for eligibility challenge
Judge: Eligibility dispute is 'serious'
Obama eligibility case survives 1st court test
Obama eligibility to see its day in court?
THE FULL STORY: See the listing
of more than 300 exclusive WND reports on the eligibility issue
Drew Zahn is a news editor for WorldNetDaily.
Re: “Some of the lawsuits question whether Obama was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists.”
Obama has proven that he was born in Hawaii by showing the official birth certificate of Hawaii, and the facts on that document were twice confirmed by the officials in Hawaii (members of a Republican governor’s administration).
The Wall Street Journal commented: “Obama has already provided a legal birth certificate demonstrating that he was born in Hawaii. No one has produced any serious evidence to the contrary. Absent such evidence, it is unreasonable to deny that Obama has met the burden of proof. We know that he was born in Honolulu as surely as we know that Bill Clinton was born in Hope, Ark., or George W. Bush in New Haven, Conn.”