Anthony Robert Martin-Trigona, usually known as Andy Martin (born 1945), is an American perennial candidate who has never been elected to office, running as both a Democrat and a Republican.
He is a vexatious litigant who has filed over 250 political lawsuits nationwide. In Connecticut, a federal judge once banned Martin from filing lawsuits in any court in the nation without a judge's permission. The federal judge said Martin considered filing lawsuits to be a "veritable sport."
The Nation, The Washington Post,Mosk, Matthew. An Attack That Came Out of the Ether . The Washington Post, June 28, 2008. and The New York Times identified Martin as the primary source of false rumors that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama was secretly a Muslim during the 2008 presidential election (an allegation Martin had made as early as 2004). In a later interview with CNN, Martin explicitly abandoned this view and now asserts Obama's real father is not Barack Obama Sr., but African-American journalist Frank Marshall Davis.
On October 17, 2008, Martin filed a lawsuit against the state of Hawaii, calling for the public release of Obama's birth certificate and other vital records. At the time, conspiracy theories postulated that Obama was not a natural-born citizen of the United States. Obama had previously posted an image of his short-form birth certificate online.The truth about Barack's birth certificate , Obama for America. Retrieved June 14, 2008.“Born in the U.S.A.: The truth about Obama's birth certificate” , FactCheck.org (August 26, 2008): "The document is a 'certification of birth,' also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns." Martin's lawsuit sought a copy of Obama's long-form birth certificate. On November 19, the Supreme Court of Hawaii dismissed Martin's lawsuit.
Early life Martin was born in 1945 in Middletown, Connecticut.Norman, Bob. Operation Baghdad . New Times Broward-Palm Beach, July 31, 2003. His father, Ralph Beneducci Martin-Trigona, was of Italian, Maltese, and English descent, and his mother, Helen Anthony (), was Greek American. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1966, and a Juris Doctor from that institution in 1969.
Career In 1973, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to grant Martin a license to practice law in the state due to such conduct as attempting to have a parking violation thrown out because it had been "entered by an insane judge" and for commenting that an attorney, who suffers from a mild case of cerebral palsy, was "shaking and tottering and drooling like an idiot." The court also cited Martin's Selective Service record, which attributed to him "a moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character."
Martin then became involved in consumer advocacy and referred to himself as "the people's attorney general". He claimed to be the first to file antitrust cases against the Big Three television networks for anticompetitive practices in network affiliation agreements and the first to bring a lawsuit under the civil component of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Political campaigns Martin grew up as a Democrat and served as an intern to Senator Paul Douglas in the summer of 1966. In 1977, he ran in a special election for Mayor of Chicago, but lost in the Democratic primary to acting mayor Michael A. Bilandic, receiving less than 3% of the vote.
Over the years, Martin has run in various elections in Connecticut, Florida, and Illinois as a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent. Among them: 1977 Chicago mayoral special election (Democratic primary) 1978 United States Senate election in Illinois (Democratic primary) 1980 United States Senate election in Illinois (Democratic primary) Connecticut's 3rd congressional district election, 1986 (Democratic primary) President of the United States, 1988 (Democratic primary) 1990 Florida gubernatorial election (Republican primary) - 4th of five candidates, 28,591 votes (4.30%) U.S. House from Florida, 1992 (Republican primary) Florida State Senate, 1996 (unsuccessful Republican nominee) 1998 United States Senate election in Florida (Republican primary) - 2nd of two candidates, 184,739 votes (33.60%) President of the United States, 2000 (Republican primary) 2000 United States Senate election in Florida (unsuccessful independent candidate) - 7th of seven candidates, 15,889 votes (0.27%) 2006 Illinois gubernatorial election (Republican primary) - 5th of five candidates, 6,095 votes (0.83%) 2008 United States Senate election in Illinois (Republican primary) - 2nd of three candidates, 240,548 votes (33.85%) 2010 United States Senate elections in Illinois (Republican primary) - 5th of six candidates, 37,359 votes (5.0%) 2012 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary - only 19 votes. 2014 United States Senate election in New Hampshire (Republican primary) - 7th of 10 candidates, 734 votes (0.67%) 2016 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in New Hampshire, 1st district (Republican primary) 3rd of 6 candidates, 2,072 (4.2%) 2020 United States Senate election in New Hampshire, (Republican primary), 3rd of 4 candidates, 6,443 votes (4.6%) 2022 United States Senate election in New Hampshire, (Republican primary), 7th of 11 candidates, 920 votes 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in New Hampshire, 1st district (Republican primary)
1996 Martin's 1996 run for the Florida State Senate unraveled when it was revealed that he had named his campaign committee for his 1986 congressional run "The Anthony R. Martin-Trigona Congressional Campaign to Exterminate Jew Power in America." The revelation led the state Republican Party to renounce him.
Just before the election, Martin assaulted two camerapersons from WPTV, the NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach, while they were interviewing him at the TV station. At the trial, he arrived late and used the dais to address the television cameras. He then refused to continue the trial with a judge who had been "bought and paid for". The judge immediately held Martin in criminal contempt of court and ordered him jailed for one month.
On the assault charge, he was convicted of criminal mischief and sentenced to a year in jail. However, when he was let out of jail for the contempt charge after serving one month, he was not re-incarcerated for the assault charge, due to a "paperwork glitch".
Martin never returned to serve out the remainder of his term, and an arrest warrant was issued for his arrest, making him subject to having to serve 16 months in jail. The warrant was still outstanding as of the time of Martin's 2008 Senate run, but Martin said the issue was being "resolved."Mendell, David, and Rick Pearson. GOP slate in Illinois U.S. Senate race . Chicago Tribune, 2008-02-01. Hosted by Illinois Republican Party.
2000 During Martin's 2000 run for president, he accused George W. Bush of using cocaine. In 2003, several months before Saddam Hussein was captured, Martin claimed to have found the former Iraqi dictator's hideout.
2010 Martin was a 2010 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois for the seat being vacated by Senator Roland Burris. In December 2009, Martin ran radio ads which included Martin requesting that one of his primary opponents, Congressman Mark Kirk, answer claims about his sexuality made by Jack Roeser, a radio talk show host. Another ad alleged that Kirk, as well as former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, had always known of fellow Congressman Mark Foley's relationship with a former page, and had done "nothing to stop Foley's pedophilia, for years", and said, that by extension, Kirk was "a de facto pedophile". In response, the state Republican Party announced that Martin would no longer be recognized as a legitimate candidate. Martin received 37,359 votes, five percent of the total votes. He attempted to run for the U.S. Senate in the general election as a member of the Reform Party of Illinois, but he did not qualify for the ballot.
Litigation and antisemitic allegations Over the years, Martin has filed numerous lawsuits, and was labeled as a vexatious litigant by Edward Weinfeld, a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who observed that Martin tended to file "a substantial number of lawsuits of a vexatious, frivolous and scandalous nature." A number of these filings were allegedly antisemitic in nature. In a 1983 bankruptcy case, Martin filed a motion calling the presiding judge "a crooked, slimy Jew who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race." In another motion that year, Martin stated, "I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did." He went on to say that "Jew survivors are operating as a wolf pack to steal my property."Washington Times: Gadfly's TV ads target Bush in N.H. December 22, 1999. Newsbank archive. When later pressed in an interview about his remarks, Martin claimed that the antisemitic comments were inserted into his court papers by malicious judges.
In 1983, José A. Cabranes, a federal judge for the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, issued a sweeping injunction barring Martin or anyone acting "at his behest, at his direction or instigation, or in concert with him" from filing any new action or proceeding in any federal or state court without first seeking permission from the court in which he wished to file that action or proceeding.Martin-Trigona v. Shaw , 986 F.2d 1384. In his ruling, Cabranes noted that Martin tended to file legal actions with "persistence, viciousness, and general disregard for decency and logic." According to Cabranes, Martin's practice was to file "an incessant stream of frivolous or meritless motions, demands, letters to the court and other documents," as well as "vexatious lawsuits" against anyone who dared cross him, including court personnel and their families. For instance, during the proceedings, Martin sued Cabranes himself, along with the judge's wife. Martin then sought, unsuccessfully, to have Cabranes recused.In re Anthony R. Martin-Trigona, 573 F.Supp. 1237 (D. Conn. 1983)
On appeal from Cabranes's ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit limited the scope of the injunction to federal courts, but stated that the federal courts were constitutionally obligated to protect themselves and the administration of justice from vexatious litigants like Martin.Martin-Trigona v. Smith et al. , 737 F.2d 1254.
Since then, Martin has continued his pattern of filing legal actions. He has repeatedly been cited for contempt for violating the federal injunction. , 767 F.2d 35 The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida estimated that he has filed thousands of proceedings over the years. In 1993, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit determined that his mother was acting in concert with him by filing a federal civil rights action against several Florida state officials. The court noted similar wording in the suit filed by Martin's mother and a petition filed by Martin himself. In throwing out the suit, the Eleventh Circuit called Martin "a notoriously vexatious and vindictive litigator who has long abused the American legal system." Most recently, a libel and invasion of privacy suit against Media Matters for America and its founder, David Brock, was dismissed with prejudice because Martin had violated the terms of the injunction.