Trumped-Up Charges
I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…
President Obama has now posted his “long form” birth certificate on the internet, and for that Donald Trump is very proud of himself. We know Trump is very proud of himself, because this wannabe cartoon candidate held a press conference to announce he is very proud of himself. I look at his baby-fat cheeks and wonder what compels this grown man to say that about himself. Did Mommy Trump or Daddy Trump never hold those cheeks and croon to Baby Trump, “Donald, I’m very proud of you!”?
Turns out the long-form certificate is one page. My birth certificate is a page, and my son’s birth certificate is a page, even though it’s written in French because he was born in Paris (mama and papa were born in the USA, so he still gets to be President), so that sounds okay. But I’m guessing someone is going to find that a little fishy. I never got to write a long-form essay that was only a page, so what’s up with that?
I’m sure the fact that this is the first President who has been asked to prove he’s an American, and the first to be more than a little black, is just a coincidence. But I admit I’ve already forbidden my daughter, who in twenty years is eligible, to run for President. I wouldn’t want anyone thinking there’s a lesbian in the family.
I hate to admit this, but I too don’t think Mr. Obama is eligible to be President. I don’t think Mr. Trump is, either. I don’t think anyone is.
Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 5 of the United States Constitution has this to say about who’s eligible for that office:
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…”
Now I’m an old English major, and can follow a comma as well as the next old English major, and I read that to say that only a person who had been born in the United States, or who had already become a naturalized citizen under qualifying law of the day, on or before 17 September 1787, is eligible to become President.
Under that reading, the last President eligible for the office was Zachary Taylor, and the two Presidents before him (Tyler and Polk) were mere pretenders.
I wonder if Donald Trump is aware of that.