In a 24-page filing littered with all-caps, bold, and underlined text, Birther attorney Orly Taitz is demanding that a federal judge recuse himself in a case that has morphed from a soldier’s attempt to resist Barack Obama’s orders to what Taitz sees as a prosecution of herself.
Taitz alleges that Judge Clay Land met with Attorney General Eric Holder, who was allegedly spotted at a small coffee shop across from Land’s courtroom in Columbus, Georgia, on the day of a Birther hearing. A strange [affidavit](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/10/orly-taitzs-motion-to-recuse-judge-clay-land-10209.php?page=20) by one Robert Douglas describes the putative sighting of Holder, sans entourage, who “probably thought he would not be recognized.”
Douglas [writes](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/10/orly-taitzs-motion-to-recuse-judge-clay-land-10209.php?page=20):
I looked up and immediately recognized an individual entering and approaching the serving counter, due to his well know [sic] TV displayed distinguishing features: his trim upper lip mustache, not large of stature and general olive complexion.
That alleged sighting is “circumstantial evidence suggesting that, in fact Judge LAND was influenced by prior association or direct ex-parte communications with Attorney General Eric Holder, acting as agent on behalf of de facto President Obama,” Taitz writes in her motion.
Her motion for the judge to recuse himself comes, remember, after Land shot down Taitz and her Army captain client’s case alleging Barack Obama is not legitimately president. At that point, despite a warning against more frivolous filings, Taitz [challenged](http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/orly_taitz/) the judge’s order. And he gave her until last Friday to explain why she shouldn’t be fined $10,000.
Which brings us to Taitz’s [motion](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/10/orly-taitzs-motion-to-recuse-judge-clay-land-10209.php?page=1) for Land, of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, to recuse himself, and another motion asking for more time to respond to the threat of sanctions.
In the motion, which you can read in full [here](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/10/orly-taitzs-motion-to-recuse-judge-clay-land-10209.php?page=1), Taitz, among other things:
* Takes umbrage at judge’s use of the term Birther to describe her, noting that it is often coupled with “even more colorful epithets such as ‘batshit crazy'”
* Says Land may be disqualified because he allegedly owns stock in Microsoft and Comcast which are “aligned both politically and economically with a key Defendant in this case” — “the de facto President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama” (emphasis hers)
* Says Land cannot be an impartial adjudicator of whether she should be sanctioned by the court because he has “radically PREJUDGED” the facts of the Birthers’ case (caps hers)
* Accuses Land of issuing “blitzkrieg-like rulings”
* Compares Birther crusade to movement for desegregation, suggesting Land, whom she calls “this distinguished Southern Judge” would have been on the side of Jim Crow:
Surely this distinguished Southern Judge would have jailed Thurgood Marshall in the 1940s and ’50s for contempt when the future Supreme Court Justice repeatedly filed cases demanding on constitutional as well as social and psychological grounds the desegregation of primary and secondary public schools against well-established precedents such as Plessy v. Fergusson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)
Finally, Tatiz asks for more time — until October 16 — to respond to his order requiring her to explain why she shouldn’t be fined $10,000. As she puts it:
The preparation of the response to this Order to Show Cause is in large part dependent upon whether the chief complaining witness, Judge Clay D. Land himself, will also serve as prosecuting attorney, judge, and jury of his complaint to impose a penalty for the undersigned attorney’s alleged misconduct in the amount of $10,000.00
