Some of you may recall hearing about Army doctor LTC Terry Lakin’s scheme to get out of deploying to Afghanistan based on the rather dubious legal theory that if Barack Obama isn’t Constitutionally eligible to serve as president, then none of his orders are valid.
As I predicted, the good doctor is throwing his 18 year military career away for nothing. The investigating officer assigned to the case has summarily rejected Lakin’s request to compel testimony from Obama, as well as his demand for the production of his birth certificate, university transcripts, and other documents, on the grounds that they have no bearing on Lakin’s case. Since this pretty much destroys Lakin’s rather dubious defense, I’d have to say that he’s toast at this point.
What really surprised me was the fact that he actually got a JAG defense lawyer to go along with this harebrained defense. I had assumed that he was using a civilian attorney, but I was wrong. You can probably add the JAG officer’s career to the trash heap after this fiasco, as well. As the memo from the investigating officer notes:
The Government does not charge that the President gave an order directly to LTC Lakin. For the President’s credentials to have any bearing on the charges against LTC Lakin, the Defense proposition must be that military orders issued by superiors to juniors are all ‘invalidated’ during the period the President improperly holds office. This proposition fails to account for the law of lawfulness of orders, which in essence requires that a facially proper order be obeyed so long as it does not require the commission of a criminal act.
Moreover, the Defense proposition fails to account for the de facto officer doctrine, a military variant of apparent authority. The Defense offers no legal support whatever for its position, which I find to be far from ‘axiomatic.’ As far as I have found, the position has no basis in law.
That’s gonna leave a mark…
