The Independent View

Writ­ten with con­tri­bu­tions from J.D. Ander­son. See his more detailed dis­cus­sion on this at his blog, Cen­trist Net.

Barack Obama’s aunt is in the United States despite a judges depor­ta­tion order back in 1995. More impor­tantly, we now know that Barack Obama has con­spired with the Gov­er­nor of Mass­a­chu­setts to ille­gally hide her in his state, to ille­gally house her in pub­lic hous­ing, and to even ille­gally employ her by the state. Each of these involve likely vio­la­tions of fed­eral law.

It is a felony to con­spire, aid, and abet a per­son under depor­ta­tion order to remain in the U.S. (See sec­tion 8 U.S.C.A. 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) [“con­ceal, har­bor, shield from detec­tion”] and (v) [con­spir­acy, aid, abet]).

The details of this pro­vide for at least five years’ incar­cer­a­tion. In the past we’ve seen pres­i­den­tial cab­i­net nom­i­nees with­draw their nom­i­na­tions because they hired ille­gal maids, babysit­ters, and con­trac­tors. This goes way beyond that. If, as Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor alleges, that Obama, his cam­paign staff, David Axel­rod, his com­pany, and the Gov­er­nor of Mass­a­chu­setts did con­spire, aid, and abet to hide, house, and employ Obama’s aunt, this tops any­thing pre­vi­ously fac­ing a promi­nent pres­i­den­tial appointee, much less, as in Obama’s case, a pres­i­den­tial candidate.

What’s Going On?

As I wrote in I Did Not Know, I Did Not Hear, I Did Not See — Barack Obama:

[Obama would like every­one to believe] he did not know that his aunt’s asy­lum claim was denied and that she was ordered deported, did not know that she was in the coun­try for the past four years ille­gally in defi­ance of that depor­ta­tion order, did not know that she was liv­ing ille­gally in Boston pub­lic hous­ing, and did not know that she had con­tributed sev­eral hun­dred dol­lars to his cam­paign. Fur­ther, it has been recently noted that he also did not know that his Kenya-​residing grand­mother, Sarah Hus­sein Obama, was liv­ing in squalor. On top of this incred­u­lous set of cir­cum­stances, Obama’s nut­roots gangs are push­ing the talk­ing point that this is all a smear, based on data that no one should know about.

Yeah, right. If there is no other defin­ing char­ac­ter trait fit­ting for Barack Obama it is that he is a patho­log­i­cal liar always ready with an “I did not know, I did not hear, and I did not see.” In almost every case that Obama has used this defense it has even­tu­ally been proven a lie.

And proven the lie is exactly right.

The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor wrote Monday:

Senior aides to Sen. Barack Obama and Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Deval Patrick were aware that Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, was liv­ing in the United States ille­gally and in a South Boston public-​housing project, and were mon­i­tor­ing her at the request of senior Obama cam­paign offi­cials, accord­ing to a cur­rent employee for Obama’s key polit­i­cal con­sult­ing firm, AKP&D Mes­sage and Media.

If he squeezes out a win tomor­row, would this be grounds to impeach him come January?

Impeach­ment is a polit­i­cal deci­sion, crim­i­nal action is likely far sim­pler. As J.G. Ander­son writes in his blog, Cen­trist Net (and his full arti­cle is a must read for its detailed dis­cus­sion on the topic):

[A]ccording to the two sources quoted by Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, the Obama cam­paign was well aware of Aun­tie Z’s immi­gra­tion sta­tus and pres­ence in Amer­ica in early 2007. Fur­ther­more, if true, the Obama’s cam­paign used Axelrod’s client and Obama’s ally, Patrick, to keep watch over Aun­tie Z until after the elec­tion. The alle­ga­tions of the two sources is con­firmed in part by Aun­tie Z’s quoted response to the British press before they broke the story:

“I can’t talk about it, I just pray for him, that’s all,” she said, adding: “After the 4th, I can talk to anyone.”

It is well within the realm of pos­si­bil­ity that Aun­tie Z would have only known to refuse com­ment if she was told to say that, likely by the Obama cam­paign. The two sources, Obama’s polit­i­cal consultant’s employee and the Obama cam­paign media aide, bol­ster this likely occur­rence. The impor­tance to tomorrow’s elec­tion becomes whether or not such agree­ment between the Obama cam­paign and Patrick to “mon­i­tor” Aun­tie Z until the elec­tion is a vio­la­tion of fed­eral immi­gra­tion laws, namely 8 U.S.C.A. 1324(a)(1)(a)(iii) and (v), which pro­hibit as a felony:

(a) Crim­i­nal Penal­ties
(1)(a) Any per­son who…
(iii) know­ing or in reck­less dis­re­gard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in vio­la­tion of law, con­ceals, har­bors, or shields from detec­tion, or attempts to con­ceal, har­bor, or shield from detec­tion, such alien in any place, includ­ing any build­ing or any means of trans­porta­tion;…
(v)(I) engages in any con­spir­acy to com­mit any of the pre­ced­ing acts, or

(II) aids or abets the com­mis­sion of any of the pre­ced­ing acts,

If the Obama cam­paign had knowl­edge of Aun­tie Z’s immi­gra­tion sta­tus in early 2007, and then Axel­rod worked with Patrick to sup­press any uncov­er­ing of such sta­tus since then, there is an arguable vio­la­tion of the statute above as such actions would each con­sti­tute an indi­vid­ual act which “con­ceals, har­bors, or shields from detec­tion, or attempts to con­ceal, har­bor, or shield from detec­tion, such alien”, as spelled out in (iii) in the statute above. Any Obama cam­paign employ­ees or Patrick staffers could be liable for con­spir­acy to com­mit vio­la­tions of the Sec­tion 1324 and aid­ing and abet­ting vio­la­tions of Sec­tion 1324 under sub­sec­tion (v).

A review of case law regard­ing this mat­ter tends to sup­port the posi­tion that the Obama campaign’s activ­i­ties, in con­junc­tion with Mass. Gov­er­nor Patrick, could have vio­lated Sec­tion 1324. Indeed, the entire pur­pose of Axelrod’s alleged con­tacts with Patrick regard­ing Aun­tie Z was to sup­press the pub­lic dis­clo­sure of Aun­tie Z’s ille­gal alien sta­tus and the law­ful, imme­di­ate depor­ta­tion under the 2004 Order. If true, the state­ments quoted in the Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor make out a prima facia case for a crim­i­nal indict­ment under Sec­tion 1324.

Sen­a­tor Barack Obama, Gov­er­nor Devel Patrick, and David Axelrod’s appar­ent con­spir­a­to­r­ial actions to hide, house, and employ Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango and by their reported action to aid and abet her defi­ance of a depor­ta­tion order is out­ra­geous and scan­dalous. If facts are as it appears, what expla­na­tion can they offer for their dis­re­spect of our nation’s laws?

For Obama — pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, sit­ting U.S. Sen­a­tor, and until recently a prac­tic­ing attor­ney — is this the actions of a per­son wor­thy of our vote? I think not. Instead, this sim­ply con­firms Obama’s arro­gance to say and do anything.

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