The attorney driving the story of the Birther Army doctor facing a court martial for refusing orders is a former Republican Hill staffer and current personal injury lawyer who has dabbled in anti-gay activism and reportedly wrote a letter to the FBI tipping off the feds to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s use of prostitutes, months before the scandal publicly broke.
Attorney Paul Rolf Jensen runs a California law firm, Jensen & Associates, that focuses on bread and butter personal injury cases involving dog bites, seatbelt failure, and asbestos exposure.
But, says the GOP operative Roger Stone, a friend and sometimes client of Jensen’s, he should not be underestimated when it comes to the case of Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin.
An Army doctor, Lakin believes President Obama may not be a natural born citizen, and therefore that military orders are invalid. He was charged last week for refusing orders to show up to be deployed for a second tour in Afghanistan.
“Jensen is a bulldog. A true student of the law. A brilliant litigator. Not adverse to high profile cases and high risk legal strategies,” says Stone in an email. He “understand[s] public relations and the damage this case can do to Obama. Won’t be adverse to trying to call Obama for testimony.”
In an appearance with Lakin on the G. Gordon Liddy show last week, one of several media appearances, Jensen hinted that he will try to use discovery to compel Obama to release a birth certificate.
Not unlike Birther attorney par excellence Orly Taitz, Jensen appears to be using the case to boost his personal profile. A new website, www.paulrolfjensen.com, trumpets his role assisting Lakin, separate from his California firm (www.personalinjuryattorneylaw.com).
Jensen did not respond to our request for comment, but his background seems to be in line with Lakin spokeswoman Margaret Hemenway, a former staffer for Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH) who now leads the American Patriot Foundation, which is raising money to pay Lakin’s legal fees.
Jensen, too, is a former Smith staffer, and he also worked for Sen. Jeremiah Denton (R-AL) and as counsel for the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in the early 2000s, according to his bio.
Also like Hemenway, who once filed a complaint against her daughter’s first grade teacher because the teacher announced she is a lesbian, Jensen has been involved in anti-gay activism.
Jensen had filed “25 charges of heresy” against other Presbyterians around the country, CNN reported in 2004. The complaints included cases in which pastors officiated over same-sex unions, ordained gay elders, or were themselves gay.
“I am called to action within the Presbyterian church to fight back against those who have made war and would destroy our church,” he told CNN.
Jensen has also sued Judicial Watch Larry Klayman for slander (after briefly working on Klayman’s ill-fated Florida Senate run in 2004). And he had a bit role in the scandal that brought down New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
“It was Jensen who advised me to let the FBI know of Eliot Spitzer black sock fetish as a way of proving Spitzer’s use of prostitutes,” says Stone. The New York Post reported that Jensen who penned a November 2007 letter to the FBI in which Stone said Spitzer “used the service of high-priced call girls.”
In the Lakin case, though, Jensen faces an uphill fight. Fox News quoted military lawyers saying that the plan to get Obama’s birth certificate will probably fail — and one observed that Jensen has very little experience in military law.
For his work, though, he will be handsomely paid. The American Patriot Foundation estimates in a new fundraising pitch that Lakin’s legal bills will top $500,000.
