Orly Taitz (; born August 30, 1960) is an Israeli-American political conspiracy theorist and political candidate. A dentist, lawyer, and former real estate agent,CA Department of Real Estate license records Taitz was a figure in the "birther" movement, which promoted the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as president of the United States. Taitz also promotes other conspiracy theories both related and unrelated to Obama. Taitz has initiated lawsuits on behalf of the "birther" movement; all were dismissed by the courts, and on one occasion Taitz was ordered to pay $20,000 as a sanction for misconduct in filing frivolous claims. Taitz has unsuccessfully run in statewide elections in California three times.
Early life and immigration Taitz was born to a Jewish family in Kishinev, Moldavian SSR, in the Soviet Union (present-day Moldova). Both of her parents were science teachers. In 1981, Taitz immigrated to Israel, where she obtained a dentistry degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1987, she met Yosef Taitz who proposed four months later. Taitz immigrated to the United States in May 1987, marrying the Latvian-born Yosef in Las Vegas. Taitz became a naturalized United States citizen in 1992. She received her law degree from Taft Law School and was admitted to practice law in California in December 2002.
Taitz lives in Laguna Niguel, California, and owns dental practices in nearby Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita. She has three sons, holds a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, and speaks five languages: English, Hebrew, Moldovan, Russian, and Spanish.
Before her national news exposure, Taitz was quoted in The Orange County Register in 2006 supporting Israeli military actions against Hamas and Hezbollah, and downplaying the impact of the espionage trial of two American Israel Public Affairs Committee staffers. (Charges against both were subsequently dropped.) Taitz has also said that she lost relatives in the Holocaust and that her grandmother witnessed the Kishinev pogrom.
Activities
Taitz's claims regarding President Obama
Taitz claimed that U.S. president Obama was not a natural-born citizen of the United States and was therefore ineligible to serve as president. She claimed he was born in Kenya and that he falsified his Selective Service papers and his application to the Illinois bar.
Taitz made other claims against Obama, including:
That a number of homosexuals from Obama's former church have died mysteriously. That Obama had dozens of Social Security numbers, and his passport was inaccurate. Taitz claimed that a person who was cooperating with the FBI in connection with Obama's passport died mysteriously, "shot in the head". That a Kenyan birth certificate with the name "Barack Obama" is authentic. That Obama's first act as president was to donate money to Hamas, which she claims will be used to build Qassam rockets. That Obama, or someone connected to him, has made threats to Taitz's life and vandalized her car. The FEMA camps conspiracy theory: Obama is having the Federal Emergency Management Agency build internment camps for "Anti-Obama dissidents". That Osama bin Laden was killed years before 2011 when he actually died, with his body kept on ice, and the announcement of his death was timed to divert attention from an upcoming court case she was litigating challenging Obama's citizenship. Claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theories: Taitz blamed Obama for the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, writing on her website, "Was Adam Lanza drugged and hypnotised by his handlers to make him into a killing machine as an excuse as the regime is itching to take all means of self defense from the populace before the economic collapse?"
Taitz's other claims Taitz has supported other theories not directly related to Obama, including: Goldman Sachs runs the United States Treasury. Baxter International has developed a bird flu vaccine that kills people. Representative Alcee Hastings and the House of Representatives are planning to build at least six labor camps. Hugo Chávez owns the software that runs American voting machines. FactCheck is untrustworthy because of its links to the Annenberg Foundation. Taitz has also advocated numerous Internet-related theories, including PayPal attacks, the deletion of her Wikipedia entry, and Google's flagging her webpage as an attack site and suppressing search results for her name.
Taitz has stated that 2016 Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Bobby Jindal were not natural-born citizens and therefore were ineligible for the office they sought.
Legal actions
Challenges to and during Obama's first presidential term
Keyes v. Bowen In November 2008, Taitz, acting on behalf of independent presidential candidate Alan Keyes, sued California's secretary of state, Debra Bowen, for allegedly failing to ascertain Obama's eligibility for the presidency before placing him on the ballot. The case was dismissed on May 4, 2009. The U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment to review the case on October 3, 2011.
Lightfoot v. Bowen Taitz filed an emergency petition in the California Supreme Court in 2008 on behalf of Libertarian vice presidential candidate Gail Lightfoot to stop the certification of California's 2008 election results because of the challenge to Obama's eligibility. The California Supreme Court denied the petition, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Barnett v. Obama Taitz filed a lawsuit on behalf of Pamela Barnett, Alan Keyes, other candidates in the 2008 federal elections, several military personnel, and some legislators from various states alleging that Obama was ineligible to be president. On October 29, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter dismissed the lawsuit. The dismissal criticized Taitz's legal abilities, stated her behavior was "unethical", and suggested that Taitz "may have suborned perjury". On December 22, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal. On June 11, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declined, without comment, a request by litigants not represented by Taitz to hear the case.
Cook v. Good Taitz represented Stefan F. Cook, a major in the United States Army Reserve, who challenged orders implementing his voluntary deployment to Afghanistan because of his claim that Obama was not a legitimate president. The case was dismissed when the Army Reserve revoked his order to deploy. Taitz filed an appeal in the Eleventh Circuit, which was dismissed on November 24, 2009, due to a failure to prosecute the appeal.
Rhodes v. MacDonald In September 2009, Taitz was retained by Captain Connie Rhodes, a U.S. Army physician. Rhodes sought a restraining order to prevent her forthcoming deployment to Iraq. In the request for a restraining order, Taitz argued the deployment order was illegal since Obama was illegally serving as president. On September 16, federal judge Clay D. Land rejected the motion and denounced it as frivolous. In his opinion, the judge noted that Rhodes had not previously raised any objections to orders she had received from Obama since he had been sworn in. He noted that while she seemed to have "conscientious objections" to taking orders from Obama, she did not seem to object to serving under him "as long as she is permitted to remain on American soil". Land then upbraided Taitz for using military officers as pawns to further her claims that Obama was not qualified to be president. He also expressed astonishment at Taitz's apparent misunderstanding of American judicial fundamentals, saying that she was trying to make Obama prove his innocence' to 'charges' that are based upon conjecture and speculation".Rhodes vs. MacDonald CASE NO. 4:09-CV-106, Middle District of Georgia(CDL)
Within hours of Land's decision, Taitz told the news site Talking Points Memo that she felt Land's refusal to hear her case was an act of treason. Two days later, she filed a motion to stay Rhodes' deployment pending rehearing of the dismissal order. She repeated her treason allegations against Land and made several other intemperate statements, including claims that Land was aiding and abetting purported aspirations of "dictatorship" by Obama.Motion for stay of Connie Rhodes' deployment Land rejected the motion as frivolous and ordered her to show cause why she should not be fined $10,000 for abuse of judicial process.
A few hours later, a letter bearing Rhodes's signature arrived, stating that Taitz filed the motion without her knowledge or consent, asking Land to remove Taitz as her attorney of record in the case, and stating that it was her "plan to file a complaint with the California State Bar due to [Taitz's] reprehensible and unprofessional actions". On September 26, 2009, Taitz filed a motion with the court seeking to withdraw as counsel for Rhodes, so she could divulge in court "privileged attorney-client communications" since the dismissed Rhodes case "is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney, for the purpose of punishment".
Attorney misconduct On October 13, 2009, Judge Clay Land ordered "Counsel Orly Taitz ... to pay $20,000 to the United States, through the Middle District of Georgia Clerk's Office, within thirty days of the date of this Order as a sanction for her misconduct in violation of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." Land's decision stated: The Court finds that counsel's conduct was willful and not merely negligent. It demonstrates bad faith on her part. As an attorney, she is deemed to have known better. She owed a duty to follow the rules and to respect the Court. Counsel's pattern of conduct conclusively establishes that she did not mistakenly violate a provision of law. She knowingly violated Rule 11. Her response to the Court's show cause order is breathtaking in its arrogance and borders on delusional. She expresses no contrition or regret regarding her misconduct. To the contrary, she continues her baseless attacks on the Court. Upon learning of Land's ruling, Taitz said she would appeal the sanction, declaring that Judge Land was "scared to go against the regime" of the "oppressive" Obama administration, and that the sanction was an attempt to "intimidate" her. On March 15, 2010, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the sanctions against Taitz, ordering her to pay the $20,000 fine.
In July 2010, Taitz applied to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the enforcement of sanctions, arguing that "allowing sanctions by judge Land to stand will signify beginning of tyranny in the United States of America and end to the Constitutional Republic which is the foundation of this nation". On July 8, the application was submitted to Associate Justice Clarence Thomas; on July 15, he denied it. Doubting that Justice Thomas signed the denial order, Taitz claimed to have requested of Chief Justice John Roberts that Thomas's signature be presented to her for verification.
In the meantime, on August 9, the federal government filed an abstract of judgment, a document placing a lien in the amount of $20,000 plus interest on all her real property, prompting Taitz to say, "I will pay the money, and I will continue fighting," should it happen that her application for stay is ultimately denied and that the Supreme Court consents to her request to authenticate Justice Thomas's signature. On August 16, after being resubmitted to Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who in turn referred it to the full court, the application for stay was again denied. On January 10, 2011, the Court declined, without comment, to hear the case.
Taitz v. Obama On January 27, 2010, Taitz, in propria persona, filed a petition for writ of quo warranto. On April 14, 2010, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth dismissed the petition, stating that "the Court is not willing to go tilting at windmills with her."