Obama lawyer to yours truly: take down your video! Shall I comply?

The Obama eligibility case took a nasty turn today. Lawyers for the
Obama campaign demanded that videos of a New Jersey administrative-law
trial come down. Those same lawyers admitted that they had removed their
associate, Alexandra Hill, from the case.

Last Tuesday, the case of Purpura and Moran v. Obama, STE
4534-12, came to trial before Administrative Law Judge Jeff S. Masin.
Nick Purpura of Wall, NJ, and Ted Moran of Toms River, NJ, said that
Barack H. Obama should not appear on the ballot of the June 5 New Jersey Democratic Primary. They gave two reasons:

1. Obama has never shown that he was born in Hawaii, or even who he is.
2. Obama cannot qualify to be President because his father was a British colonial subject.

CNAV recorded the hearing. So, too, did Dan Haggerty of The
Baer-Haggerty Offensive, a radio program that runs each Wednesday
afternoon at Re-patriot Radio (WNJC, AM 1360).

Judge Masin concluded that Obama had not “failed in any obligation” to make any
showing, either of his identity or that he was a natural-born citizen.
Mario Apuzzo, attorney for Purpura and Moran, confirmed to CNAV that they will still appeal that conclusion.

But the part that has excited observers nationwide happened in the
second hour of the hearing. Alexandra M. Hill, of Genova, Burns,
Giantomasi and Webster, represented the Obama campaign at the hearing.
Apuzzo called Brian Wilcox, an Internet document expert, to the stand,
to attack the Obama birth certificate document that the White House
served to the Internet on April 27, 2011. Ms. Hill then said that the
PDF document was irrelevant to the case at hand, and conceded that Obama never once
gave his birth certificate, or any good copy of it, hard or soft, to
the New Jersey Secretary of State or the Division of Elections. Hill
then claimed that New Jersey law did not force Obama to give anything
to qualify himself for a primary ballot, and that New Jersey residents
could nominate Mickey Mouse if they could get enough signatures to
nominate him.

The Tea Party Tribune, and other media organs quoting them, construed
this as saying that Alexandra Hill “admitted that the Obama birth
certificate is a forgery.” That is not correct. But she clearly did
damage enough to the Obama eligibility argument, and embarrassed the
Obama campaign. Recent events have made this abundantly clear.

Mario Apuzzo walks toward the Office of Administrative Law with his two clients. Photo: CNAV.

Jerome R. Corsi made the latest Obama eligibility issue famous with this story about the hearing. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, Alexandra Hill’s boss called Mario Apuzzo directly. CNAV heard first from Nick Purpura and then directly from Apuzzo.

Apuzzo received a call from a man identifying himself as Angelo Genova, the lead partner
of Genova, Burns, Giantomasi and Webster. Genova was agitated and
almost overwrought. He demanded to know why Apuzzo had videotaped the
proceedings (a thing Apuzzo did not do), and then said that he would
“move to strike the video from the record.” Genova also said that:

• Alexandra M. Hill is not working on the case of Purpura and Moran v. Obama any longer. Angelo Genova has taken that case over and is handling it personally.
• Death threats have come to the firm. Apuzzo told CNAV that Ms. Hill was the main target of these threats. Billy Baer also talked to Apuzzo, after CNAV
  called Dan Haggerty for comment. Apuzzo apparently told Baer that
  Genova never made clear whether the threatening person was threatening
  Ms. Hill alone or “the firm in general,” whatever that might mean.

Apuzzo offered to Genova to condemn the threats for the record, on his blog.
Genova hastily declined. He then dwelt at length on the making of the
video or videos and accused Apuzzo of making them without the court’s
permission.

CNAV has long suspected that the Obama eligibility case has
stalled because some person or persons is/are applying pressure to
witnesses and media organs to keep quiet. Now CNAV finds itself a direct target, as is the Baer-Haggerty Offensive.

CNAV emphasizes that Mario Apuzzo did not commission CNAV to record the video footage of the Obama eligibility hearing. Neither did he so commission Baer or Haggerty, as both men confirmed to CNAV today.

The New Jersey Administrative Code says that anyone may
record a public hearing. The judge may restrict such recording so that
it does not disrupt the hearing. On April 10, before the hearing began,
Judge Masin summoned Apuzzo and Hill to his chambers. There, as Apuzzo
said later, the judge asked about persons wanting to record the hearings
on video. Apuzzo knew that CNAV and Dan Haggerty had brought
cameras. He had also given an interview to Station WHYY-TV (Channel 12,
Philadelphia, PA), who told him they would come to the hearing. Judge
Masin said that he would allow video cameras, so long as their operators
mounted them on fixed tripod stands. Haggerty and CNAV agreed to this. (See also Commander Kerchner’s blog entry.)

CNAV and Haggerty recorded the entire hearing. WHYY-TV came in late, recorded for five minutes, then left.

Thus Judge Masin, acting according to law, let CNAV
and Dan Haggerty record the hearing. At least, both our sets of videos
are citizen observations of public hearings. They are also work products
of the press. Therefore, the US Constitution and
New Jersey law protect this content. For Genova to try to suppress this
content a week after the fact is the silliest moment in the entire
Obama eligibility saga. No court can “strike the content from the
record,” because the content is not part of any court record. Nor can
anyone enjoin a citizen journalist, or any other citizen, from recording a public hearing.

CNAV condemns, in the strongest possible terms, any threat that anyone makes against any
lawyer, journalist, or other person taking part in the political or
legal process, recording it for posterity, or simply watching it. This
applies especially to any threats that anyone might or might not have
made to Alexandra M. Hill or any member or employee of Genova, Burns,
Giantomasi and Webster.

But CNAV also knows its rights under the Constitution and New Jersey law. Therefore, CNAV will not remove any video footage
that it took at the New Jersey Obama eligibility hearing. Baer and
Haggerty confirmed that they will not remove their footage, either.

Herewith the footage that has Lawyer Genova's boxers in a wad: