Barack Obama -- June 24, 2009

Occidental College

Occidental
College

event	description
Note:	Archive order not established.
Status	There is an open question regarding Obama's status as a student at Occidental. The question is, did Obama receive student aid as a foreign student? Obama is vigorously fighting the release of his Occidental College records and has paid.
Subsidized	I have never viewed what he said on the Occidental College scholarship application as particularly significant. Along with the remainder of the Indonesian citizen and activities evidence, most of which has also been scrubbed. As a lawyer, I recognize that there is a much broader legal issue behind the "natural born citizen" Constitutional provision if it ultimately proved that he was in fact born in Hawaii, to which this Indonesian citizen evidence would be relevant. However having been in court once or twice and looking at the likely development of a courtroom legal controversy over this issue, I have come to the relatively firm conclusion that if he could ultimately prove he was born in Hawaii, he is going to remain President of the US, notwithstanding what looks like a reasonable legal Constitutional argument that he still doesn't qualify. That is just how it is. So I have ignored the evidence behind the rest of these arguments. Although I will say that a year ago, in the early stages of the long thread, a link was posted to a person who had been at Occidental College in his period or who had been involved with getting him there (maybe not a fellow student) who as I recall stated that he had been subsidized as a foreign student from Indonesia. I ignored that--in the modern world, kids going to college get all the financial aid they can get on any basis they can get it and it's just part of the dance of dealing with the educators who have constructed an uneconomic and unfair admissions system. Just part of life. But I think that comment was the origin of the inquiry about what he might have said to Occidental. My interest in the issue has continued because as a lawyer who has been involved in legal contests of this variety, my judgment is that it is pretty clear that he was in fact born at Coast Hospital in Mombassa Kenya. And I will tell you that the next upcoming round is likely to get into the factual contest over where he was born. I expect to see much better fake documents than we have seen to date. I expect that ultimately, officials at the state of Hawaii will decide to scrub their records of whatever offending documentary material they have that does prove he was born in Kenya; and we will be left with needing to introduce documents and evidence on the subject ourselves. I think Polarik has been in a courtroom before and understands what we are likely to face. It isn't going to be enough that it turns out that once Hawaii gets done with their files, there is no real evidence that he was born in Hawaii. Although he ought to be required to prove he was born in the US and that he meets whatever other legal test is implicit in the "natural born" requirement, that isn't going to be the way the courtroom argument will come out. It is going to be necessary to at least make a prima facia case that he was born in Kenya. For that purpose, it would be very helpful to get our hands on the record certification document that has been out there floating around. I am concerned that the Opposing Forces may have reached it first. FreeRepublic.com -- post # 697 --posted on Thursday, July 16, 2009 10:59:16 AM by David (...)
An Open Question	Yahoo! Answers has the following report posted as an "Open Question." In a move certain to fuel the debate over Obama’s qualifications for the presidency, the group "Americans for Freedom of Information" has released copies of President Obama’s college transcripts from Occidental College. Released today, the transcript indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the school. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship. This document would seem to provide the smoking gun that many of Obama’s detractors have been seeking. Update: Here is the same report. The International Press Association is crediting the Associated Press (AP) as the source. This report is posted here, because it's popping up all over the Internet, but I'm suspicious of it and would classify it as a rumor until somebody posts the court documents. In a case brought by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Ambassador Alan Keyes, Judge Michael P. Kenny threw out a subpoena issued to Occidental College to provide copies of Obama's records of attendance. Now there may be another case or another finding, but that's the last info I have. Of course, these rumors could be put to rest if Obama would just release his bona fides, instead of spending more than $1 million dollars on lawyers. According to Politico, "the FEC allows elected officials to use campaign funds to pay legal fees only if the action/investigations arise as a result of their tenure in office or campaigns." That seems to be a fairly straightforward rule by the FEC. However, Obama is illegally using campaign funds to fight the disclosure of his college records from Occidental because they might show that he enrolled as a foreign citizen. Why else would he hire a high-priced lawyer whose other clients include Amazon, Starbucks, and Microsoft? His campaign has spent almost $700,000 on just this one law firm -- and he has other law teams actively denying the American People reasonable access to his birth certificate and scholastic and medical records. Why?