Lakin In the Gap

MY PLEA FOR CLEMENCY FOR TERRY LAKIN

By Gloria Merle Huffman

12/25/2010

December 25, 2010

Dear Army Public Affairs Officer Col. Robert Manning:

I learned of Terrence Lakin's case on 9/15, just five days after I ran across a long but clearly-written legal essay by Daniel P. Tokaji in the Michigan Law Review explaining that the only place to challenge presidential eligibility or election results is in state court — not starting out in federal court, and certainly not in a military court. [Do a Find on ‘September 10, 2010 at 5:00 am’ at ‘The Presidential Poser’ -

http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/freedom-concerns/the-presidential-poser/ [NB: Sun., 8/13/2017 10:01 pm EDT - Page no longer available.]

It doesn’t make sense that it isn’t relevant for the military to challenge the eligibility of the very Commander in Chief of the military, but that’s the strange truth of the matter, because the People (through the political process of voting at the state ballot boxes) have power over the Commander in Chief, who is in turn over the military.

#1 Voters > #2 President > #3 Military

Entire revolutions can occur without bloodshed ... at the ballot box ... because of the United States Constitution and the voting process.

As I understand it, the Military (Power #3), right up to the top brass, must operate on the assumption that an elected President (Power #2) is legitimate, whether he is or not, and protect him (because the President elected by the Voters is Commander in Chief over the Military) ... until one or more Citizen-Voters (Power #1) brings a lawsuit against the President in a state court that successfully attacks his eligibility or the validity of his election.

Assume legitimacy until proven otherwise in state court. This helps maintain strict order within the military, which, when you stop and think about it, is a delicately dangerous machine comprised of soldiers trained to kill on command.

I would think that a citizen (either a civilian or a military person like Lakin) who is given bad advice or from whom crucially pertinent information is withheld, and who acts on that advice or that void to his great detriment, must surely be able to sue the bad advisor or the withholder of information (perhaps one or both of Lakin's lawyers?), especially when the injury is so monumental (a felony conviction, jail time, and a huge financial loss).

As we all know, the military operates on secrecy and deception (e.g., you don't let your enemies know your weaknesses or your war losses, etc.). The military is not constrained by law to reveal all that it knows. It may say, 'This is not the place to seek what you want,' while not saying where the correct place is. It can't be sued for its own silence, even if it results in the sacrifice of a soldier. This is a fact of daily life in the military.

If the Army had told Lakin he needed to go to a state court, it would have been telling him, in effect, how to injure its Commander in Chief, and it would then have been derelict in its own duty. The Army did what it had to do, technically speaking, both before Lakin refused to deploy and at his court-martial. Even if everyone in command in the Army personally questioned Obama's legitimacy, the Army's hands would be tied.

The Army’s failures to tell Lakin to go to a state court were not punishable, whereas Lakin’s failure to obey orders was punishable.

But no one kept Lakin from being needlessly hung in the public square. Therefore the ones who are truly guilty are all who knew but didn’t tell. Not really Lakin.

Therein lies the poignancy of this story.

While being technically guilty of a crime of omission, his motive was pure and his goal was truth. He went to school to study medicine, not American government. But even if he had studied government or political science, he might not have learned how to challenge the Constitutional validity of a president.

His actions were foreseeable in view of his predicament: he felt duty-bound and honor-bound to help discover whether the Commander in Chief is legitimate, yet he (along with thousands of other Americans) didn't know the permissible channels for doing so. That ignorance wasn't dispelled by anything in the news media or the culture at large, which caused him and his supporters to be predictably distressed by the Army's refusal to cooperate in a matter which they all felt was of such burning importance. Their online comments showed that they clearly didn't understand why the Army said it was not the proper place to try to force the President's hand.

'Don't ask for evidence, ‘cause we don't tell you how to get it.’

Can you jail the Army? No. It followed the book.

Lakin is a good man, one who embodies the highest of ideals of a military man. He proved himself willing to figuratively die for his country, to endure ignominy and to watch his own family suffer for what he felt was the right thing to do: to be true to his military oath.

He was not disagreeing with the military on a particular war or war action. He was not disobeying an officer because he didn't like the officer or because he disagreed with the officer's command. He was not asking even one other person to refuse to deploy. He apparently felt that his own possible self-sacrifice would be enough to gain discovery of the President's records. He seemed to think that somebody had to step up to the plate, and he became willing to be that one.

He has been characterized as obsessed with Obama's eligibility. That's merely a negative twist on his dedication and single-mindedness. He was focused razor-sharp on one thing only: getting clarity on the legitimacy of the Commander in Chief. That was an understandable motive for his insubordination, as no one in his sphere of communication seemed to know what else to do, and especially since he had sworn to uphold the Constitution and the Constitution was lying in a myopic haze.

How did he fall so swiftly from a sterling reputation of honorable military service to total shame, incarceration, and vile penury? He stepped into the Information Gap.

As with Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, there was "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink" ... information here, information there, but nary a helpful road sign for Lakin and others to follow to some state court of law to challenge the President's eligibility. Whose fault was that? Not Lakin's.

Without a map, without a road sign, Lakin forged ahead, showing bold leadership on a Constitutional issue. Whether he thought of the court-martial himself, or whether it was suggested to him by someone else, he was willing to do what had never been done before.

If he had known there was another way to go about it, I'm certain he would never have done what he did, because he knew the price would be high if he failed.

The Information Gap was created by the failure of knowledgeable persons to educate the unenlightened on this very basic point in American political procedure: how to challenge a president. A teachable moment was ignored by the whole nation. The question of Obama's eligibility became like bait leading to entrapment of the unwary and uninformed in the bear trap pit of the Information Gap.

The Army was technically correct. Lakin was technically wrong. But his misstep was caused by the Information Gap, which if it were a person should be swinging from the gallows. The Information Gap, a gaping grave that swallows men alive: guilty as charged, with no mitigating factors and no excuses.

Col. Manning, please consider asking Maj. Gen. Karl Horst to grant Lakin clemency. Pardon Lakin. At the very least, find a way to restore financial support to his family, who should not be so disastrously harmed by this man's misguided efforts to serve, even more honorably than he has already done, our country and its Constitution, both of which he so obviously loves.

Sincerely and with great respect,

G.H.