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With protesters gathering and praying on the front steps, the U.S. Supreme Court met in conference today to discuss whether or not to hear a case challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to be president.
"Obama was born a dual citizen," protester Roger Bredow told the Washington, D.C., local events blog, DCist. "British, and a citizen of the United States, at birth."
According to Bredow – and the case the Supreme Court reviewed today – dual citizenship makes Obama ineligible to take the oath of office.
The case of Leo C. Donofrio v. New Jersey Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells, which claims Obama does not meet the Constitution's Article 2, Section 1 "natural-born citizen" requirement for president, was initially denied a hearing by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, but Justice Clarence Thomas agreed to bring it back for review today.
In order to go forward in the process, the case needs four of the Supreme Court's nine justices to approve a full hearing.
"If I'm going to be honest with you," Bredow confessed, "I thought I might be the only person here."
DCist contributor Dave Weigel reported roughly 15 to 20 people showed up for the rally.
"There aren't a lot of people out here today," said Steve Brindle, who drove into the capital from Pennsylvania. "There are a lot of people talking about this back home. Really, everyone's asking questions."
Donofrio's questions began months ago.
Donofrio's original suit sought a court order to stop the Nov. 4 presidential election. When that was denied, he amended his complaint to stop the Electoral College from certifying Obama as the winning candidate when it meets Dec. 15.
Unlike many of the lawsuits regarding Obama's "natural-born citizen" status, the Donofrio case makes no allegation that Obama was born on foreign soil. Instead, Donofrio contends Obama was a British citizen at birth, because of citizenship in a British colony, Kenya.
"Don't be distracted by the birth certificate and Indonesia issues," Donofrio writes on his Natural Born Citizen blog. "They are irrelevant to Senator Obama's ineligibility to be president. Since Barack Obama's father was a citizen of Kenya and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of Senator Obama's birth, then Senator Obama was a British citizen 'at birth.'"
Obama's Fight the Smears website confirms that Donofrio is correct about the Democrat's citizenship at birth, but says his dual citizenship with Britain expired, leaving him with only American citizenship.
Donfrio, however, contends that the Constitution was written in such a way to exclude dual citizens like Obama.
"The Framers of the Constitution, at the time of their birth," Donofrio writes, "were also British citizens, and that's why the Framers declared that, while they were citizens of the United States, they themselves were not 'natural born citizens.'"
"Therefore," Donofrio summarizes, "even if he were to produce an original birth certificate proving he were born on U.S. soil, he still wouldn't be eligible to be president."
As WND has reported, Donofrio's case is only one of several filed around the country challenging Obama's eligibility to be elected president under the Constitution.
Last month WND reported worries over a "constitutional crisis" that could be looming over the issue of Obama's citizenship.
WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi even traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, simply hasn't ordered it made available to settle the rumors.
The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?
Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born. There have been other allegations that Obama actually was born in Kenya during a time when his father was a British subject.
Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others filed a court petition in California asking the secretary of state to refuse to allow the state's 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office.
The California action was filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Keyes, the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, along with Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.
"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.
The popular vote Nov. 4 favored Obama over Sen. John McCain by several percentage points. But because of the distribution of the votes, Obama is projected to take the Electoral College vote by a 2-to-1 margin.
The California case states, "There is a reasonable and common expectation by the voters that to qualify for the ballot, the individuals running for office must meet minimum qualifications as outlined in the federal and state Constitutions and statutes, and that compliance with those minimum qualifications has been confirmed by the officials overseeing the election process," the complaint said, when in fact the only documentation currently required is a signed statement from the candidate attesting to those qualifications.
"Since [the secretary of state] has, as its core, the mission of certifying and establishing the validity of the election process, this writ seeks a Court Order barring SOS from certifying the California Electors until documentary proof that Senator Obama is a 'natural born' citizen of the United States of America is received by her," the document said.
"This proof could include items such as his original birth certificate, showing the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor, all of his passports with immigration stamps, and verification from the governments where the candidate has resided, verifying that he did not, and does not, hold citizenship of these countries, and any other documents that certify an individual’s citizenship and/or qualification for office.
The "certification of live birth" posted by the Obama campaign cannot be viewed as authoritative, the case alleges.
"Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence," the document said. "The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama's original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him."
The case also raises the circumstances of Obama's time during his youth in Indonesia, where he was listed as having Indonesian citizenship. Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, raising the possibility of Obama's mother having given up his U.S. citizenship.
Any subsequent U.S. citizenship then, the case claims, would be "naturalized," not "natural-born."
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