Obama Not Licensed Lawyer Anymore
When you are a U.S. Senator, you can’t have outside income unless you write a book.
So, I guess it should not be much of a surprise that Barack Obama has let his Illinois law license lapse sometime this year.
But he didn’t decide to stop paying the licensing fee until this year, however, according to records readily available at the Attorney’s Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
And you may be surprised where I learned this information.
It was an email from Andy Martin, the only announced candidate for the Republican nomination to run against Dick Durbin for the U.S. Senate next year.
He included the tid-bit, almost as a throwaway at the bottom of a press release about having filed a formal complaint against Obama with
the Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar, and Attorney and Attorney Registration Commission, asking for an investigation concerning whether Senator Barack Obama obtained bar admission based on false representations.The basis for his complaint are the 17 parking tickets Obama just paid from his college days.
Notice: I have had parking ticket problems, too.
Martin writes,Illinois agencies require that any outstanding parking tickets be paid prior to bar admission. It does not appear based on the available circumstantial evidence that Obama answered his bar admission questionnaire truthfully."V-e-r-y interesting," as they would say on Laugh-in.
His wife Michele, also an attorney, relinquished her Illinois license in 1993.
Always more on McHenry County Blog.
20 comments:
If the best that Republicans can come up with is unpaid parking tickets from when Obama was in college, I'm going to go ahead and purchase my tickets to the Inaugural Ball.
BTW, Cal, it would be great if you could learn how to spell "Barack." You've misspelled it so much, I can only guess that this is another facet of the Republican's lame strategy aimed at America's xenophobic darkside, with the goal of making Obama seem as foreign as possible.
Finally for now, from the Bar Exam Application:
"During the last seven years, have you been given a summons or written warning, arrested, or taken into custody and questioned or accused formally or informally of the violation of any traffic law, excluding parking violations and charges disclosed in response to preceding question 49? (emphasis added)
Obama should hope Fitz isn't appointed to investigate... forgetting gets you prison with him.
Unless, of course, you 'forgot' that you were planning to blow up the World Trade Center. Old Fitz has yet to address the knackers-up he orchestrated on that one.
Bill, Triple Cross is a pretty strong indictment of our U.S. Prosecutor - it is definately a huge page turner.
This from Amazon site:
"This is the most dangerous man I have ever met. We cannot let this man out on the street."
—Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, 1997
In the years leading to the 9/11 attacks, no single agent of al Qaeda was more successful in compromising the U.S. intelligence community than Ali Mohamed. A former Egyptian army captain, Mohamed succeeded in infiltrating the CIA in Europe, the Green Berets at Fort Bragg, and the FBI in California—even as he helped to orchestrate the al Qaeda campaign of terror that culminated in 9/11. As investigative reporter Peter Lance demonstrates in this gripping narrative, senior U.S. law enforcement officials—including the now-celebrated U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who personally interviewed Mohamed long before he was brought to ground—were powerless to stop him. In the annals of espionage, few men have moved between the hunters and the hunted with as much audacity as Ali Mohamed. For almost two decades, the former Egyptian army commando succeeded in living a double life. Brazenly slipping past watch lists, he moved in and out of the U.S. with impunity, marrying an American woman, becoming a naturalized citizen, and posing as an FBI informant—all while acting as chief of security for Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Known to his fellow terrorists as Ali Amiriki, or "Ali the American," Mohamed gained access to the most sensitive intelligence in the U.S. counterterrorism arsenal while brokering terror summits, planning bombing missions, and training jihadis in bomb building, assassination, the creation of sleeper cells, and other acts of espionage.Building on the investigation he first chronicled in his previous books, 1000 Years for Revenge and Cover Up, Lance uses Mohamed to trace the untold story of al Qaeda's rise in the 1980s and 1990s. Incredibly, Mohamed, who remains in custodial witness protection today, has never been sentenced for his crimes. He exists under a veil of secrecy—a living witness to how the U.S. intelligence community was outflanked for years by the terror network.
From his first appearance on the FBI's radar in 1989—training Islamic extremists on Long Island—to his presence in the database of Operation Able Danger eighteen months before 9/11, this devious triple agent was the one terrorist they had to sweep under the rug. Filled with news-making revelations, Triple Cross exposes the incompetence and duplicity of the FBI and Justice Department before 9/11 . . . and raises serious questions about how many more secrets the Feds may still be hiding.
About the Author
Peter Lance is a five-time Emmy Award–winning investigative reporter. Author of 1000 Years for Revenge, Cover Up, and the novel First Degree Burn, he is a former correspondent for ABC News and has covered hundreds of stories worldwide for 20/20, Nightline, and World News Tonight. Among his other awards are the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Prize and the Sevellon Brown Award from the Associated Press Managing Editors association. Peter Lance lives in California.
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Conduct for which attorneys have been disciplined includes...
....In re Stone, 109 I11.2d 253, 486 N.E.2d 915 (1985); failure to pay parking tickets and causing the municipality to sue for the fines incurred,
via Hinshaw and Culbertson's resource center. Do a search on the word parking.
I've made the correction in the Senator's first name.
The last time I won a spelling bee was in 8th grade. It's been downhill since then.
The pertinent questions are on both the "Character and Fitness Questionaire" and the "Additional Questionaire", both required to be completed to sit for the Bar Exam located here (https://www.ibaby.org/displayform.php?appid=1).
YDD, I wonder why you stopped quoting at question 50 of the Character and Fitness Questionaire? Here's the next question, number 51:
"51 Do you have any outstanding parking violations?
If yes, Explain. Fully explain the facts, including without limitation the number of such tickets, ticketing authority, dates incurred, and the amounts claimed due. If you are currently contesting any such outstanding parking ticket(s), explain in detail the basis upon which you are contesting each ticket."
Or this:
"53 Is there any additional information with respect to possible misconduct or lack of moral qualification or general fitness on your part that is not otherwise disclosed by your answers to questions in this application?
If yes, Explain."
And finally this:
"55 Do you understand that after your Character and Fitness Registration Application is filed, you will have a continuous reporting obligation and must notify the Board of Admissions of any changes or additions to the information provided in your application? This includes, but is not limited to, address changes, employment changes, criminal charges, disciplinary actions (educational, employment or other), and traffic violations, including any parking tickets that are not paid upon receipt.
If no, Explain."
And from the Additional Questionaire:
"33 Do you have outstanding parking violations?
If yes, Explain. Fully explain the facts, including without limitation the number of such tickets, ticketing authority, dates incurred, and the amounts claimed due. If you are currently contesting any such outstanding parking ticket(s), explain in detail the basis upon which you are contesting each ticket."
and
"35 Do you understand that after this Additional Questionnaire is filed, you will have a continuing reporting obligation to notify the Board of Admissions of any changes or additions to the information provided in your application? This includes, but is not limited to, address changes, employment changes, disciplinary actions (professional, educational, employment or other), arrests, criminal charges, becoming a party to litigation, overdue and defaulted credit and loan accounts, filing for relief under federal bankruptcy laws, failure to comply with state or federal tax laws, and traffic violations, including any parking tickets that are not paid upon receipt.
If no, Explain."
If Obama failed to disclose his outstanding parking tickets on these questionaires, it is grounds for disciplinary action, including revocation of his law license.
This is hilarious! I'm with YDD on getting in on some inaugural ball tickets now.
Obama would rather talk absent mindedness and parking tickets for sure, than trying to square his comments to AIPAC with what he was telling Rashid Khalidi down in Hyde Park a few years ago.
This is going to be a non-issue.
1) The only reason we know about this is because Obama's own research people did a thorough search.
2) For this complaint to go anywhere, you'd have to prove that Obama wilfully and knowingly misled the ARDC. My guess is that the ARDC might not even have a copy of his application anymore. So are you going to prove what Obama told the ARDC and that he intentionally misled them? (Btw, keep in mind that I know attorneys who were admitted despite disclosed unpaid fines, tickets, etc., and several who had been convicted of felonies.)
3) Parking tickets? YD is right: if all you can pin on this guy is that he went to a public school with Muslims, his middle name is Hussein, and he didn't pay a couple of parking tickets . . . yeah, see you in DC at the Inaugural.
Baar you are on the money,
Obama loads up on non-issues to distract from his partisan voting record and 1960's leftish positions on issues.
Obama seems to think that keeping WalMarts out of the South Side, imposing high tariffs on imported ethanol, and champoining the Bridge to Nowhere are somehow going to bring the nation together for some kind of healing ceremony.
He is nowhere close to the reasonable on major issues, while the press continues to chatter about his grade school, parentage, and parking tickets.
JBP
The parking tickets are such a non-issue for a presidential election, though I am curious why he wouldn't include that information on the questionnaires. Perhaps he just forgot. Regardless, I don't believe its a reflection on Obama's character. The character question falls on YDD, who selectively chose one question that bolstered his positions and ignored several others on the same form that diminished it. The naked partisanship of those like YDD will make rational discussion of the issues in this presidential election to be nearly impossible.
JB Powers accuses Obama of "champoining the Bridge to Nowhere."
My recollection is that the "Bridge to Nowhere" -- an earmark in the budget for a bridge in Alaska -- was at issue in 2005. Obama was not in the US Senate during that vote.
Am I missing something?
TOA,
Yes, after Hurrican Katrina, via the Coburn Ammendment, the Bridge to Nowhere came up again. Obama traded I-355 extension support for Bridge To Nowhere, leaving Katrina victims and taxpayers out to dry.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001931.html
JBP
JB,
Thanks for the upadted info. The link you provided, though, was on the 2005 vote. Do you know when the second vote took place? (I'm not looking for a link or an exact date, just something that will help me find the vote on my own.)
Thanks.
TOA,
I am not sure what you are getting at, but per his website, and my memory Obama was "Sworn into office January 4, 2005". In 2005, January fell 8 months before hurricane Katrina, and 9 months before the Coburn Ammendment.
After voting against the Coburn Ammendment, Obama went on to work with Senator Coburn to find out who was holding up disclosure of finance information with regard to earmark spending.
Of course, Obama or the press could just look at Sen Obama's own voting record to see who is supporting Pork, but seems obsessed with parking tickets, primary schools, instead of the actual issues.
JBP
How does that go?
"Vvvvvery interesting ... but stupid."
Thanks for info, JB.
I'm just interested, because it's a surprising vote, and one I'm inclined to think is a bad vote. Although I am curious why the vote against the Coburn amendment was so lopsided (85-12, I think.)
It probably won't change my support for Obama, but it does factor in my opinion. And, it's the first legitimate criticism I've heard aimed at Obama.
As for the dates: yeah, my bad. I was a bit dyslexic there for a minute.
"Although I am curious why the vote against the Coburn amendment was so lopsided"
My guess is that we have elected a bunch of swindlers in the Senate who would rather loot from the taxpayers than show adult leadership of a country that was suffering a national disaster and is engaged in a thoroughly complex war.
I wonder if the slogan "Obama, Swindling all of DC for the Illinois Lobbyists" would get him any votes?
JBP
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