Army Dashes Birther Hopes For Obama Testimony At Court Martial

Justin Elliott | June 4, 2010
TPM Muckraker

In a judicial smackdown reminiscent of the Orly Taitz saga, the investigating officer in the court martial of Birther Army doctor Terrence Lakin has denied Lakin's request to compel President Obama to testify, robbing the Birthers of what they hoped would be a golden opportunity to try the "eligibility" question in a high-stakes trial setting.

Lakin is being court martialed for refusing to follow orders to deploy to Afghanistan on the grounds that Obama is not eligible to be president and that therefore, in Lakin's view, all military orders are illegitimate.

Investigating Officer Lt. Col. Daniel Driscoll ruled in a June 1 memo that he is denying a request to have Obama testify and that he will not review any materials relating to Obama's eligibility to be president, including birth records and the like, according to a copy (.pdf) of the order released by the American Patriot Foundation, which is backing Lakin.

"The Defense submitted a Memorandum outlining the concept of chain of command, showing that the President is at the top of the chain, showing that the Constitution requires the President to be a natural born citizen, and stating that soldiers must disobey 'illegal orders,'" Driscoll explains in the memo. "There is no scholarly discussion of what constitutes an illegal order or under what circumstances such an order can be disobeyed or must be disobeyed. Rather, the Defense baldly asserts. '[LTC Lakin's] submission is that if the president is ineligible under the constitution to serve in office, then axiomatically no order given by him is valid.'"

(More here.)