Lawyers seeking President Barack Obama's removal from office on grounds he was not born in the United States took their case Monday to the Santa Ana courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter.
But it's not even clear whether Carter has the jurisdiction to hear the case.
That's just one of the legal hurdles ahead for Rancho Santa Margarita-based attorney Orly Taitz and Ramona-based lawyer Gary G. Kreep.
Carter repeatedly said he was concerned about legal standing in the case, meaning Kreep and Taitz must show their clients suffered some harm or injury.
Under heightened security, Monday's hearing on the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss the case drew an overflow crowd, leading court officials to set up a TV feed in a neighboring court room for onlookers.
The proceedings were interrupted by occasional applause when Taitz and Kreep made their arguments. Carter said he did not want to "chill the enthusiasm" of the audience, but he admonished Taitz for encouraging readers of her blog to phone his office.
"You should know I'm not accepting those phone calls. They're going to an answering machine and a secretary is deleting them," Carter said.
The day started with Carter denying Kreep's motion to sever his case from Taitz's. Kreep represents Wiley Drake, who ran for vice president under the American Independent Party, and Markham Robinson, the chairman of the American Independent Party.
Taitz represents Capt. Pamela Barnett and other military officers who question orders from the Commander in Chief. She has done the same elsewhere in the country and has failed, most recently in a Georgia court where U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land rejected the lawsuit Taitz filed on behalf of Capt. Connie Rhodes, a physician who was fighting her assignment to Iraq.
In his motion to sever their cases, Kreep said, "Dr. Taitz has filed increasingly convoluted pleadings that do not adequately address the injury of plaintiffs, nor do anything but confuse the issues presented."
Department of Justice attorneys Roger West and David DeJute argued that only Congress can remove a president through impeachment and that the only way the courts get involved is having the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court preside over the impeachment trial.
Otherwise, the country would be "crippled" if a lone judge could undo an election, West said.
Carter quizzed Taitz as to why she waited until inauguration day to file her lawsuit when it was too late to have the electoral college go against the popular vote. Taitz said problems she had with her clients and with Kreep made it impossible for her to file sooner.
Carter seemed skeptical that his courtroom -- or any courtroom -- was the appropriate place to unseat the president, but said he would rule on the arguments at an undetermined date.
"The powers that be must have got to the judge," Neil Turner, who attended the hearing, told Examiner.com. "It’s just more of the same.
"We are not going away and will not stop until we have the truth."
