When we last checked in on the Birther lawsuit Attorney Orly Taitz is pursuing in federal court, Taitz’s client, Army Capt. Connie Rhodes, was denouncing Taitz and threatening her with a bar complaint. And the judge had given Taitz until October 2 to explain why he shouldn’t fine her $10,000 for repeated frivolous filings.
Now, in a new motion filed Saturday in U.S. district court in Georgia, Taitz “respectfully” requests that she be allowed to withdraw as Rhodes’ counsel. (Rhodes, who has deployed to Iraq, already requested that Taitz no longer represent her.)
But here’s the twist: Taitz says her motive for seeking to withdraw as counsel is to be able to divulge “privileged attorney-client communications” and to “offer evidence and call witnesses whose testimony will be adverse to her (former) client’s most recently stated position in this case.”
It’s not clear what evidence or witnesses Taitz is referring to.
In light of the judge’s threat of sanctions, the case, Taitz says, “is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney, for the purpose of punishment.”
Read her full motion here.
We suspect that Judge Clay Land of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, who has twice roundly denounced Taitz and Birther ideology, won’t be too pleased with her proposal to call witnesses in response to his threat of sanctions. Could another colorful order from Land be in the pipeline?
Late Update: Several readers have written in to accurately observe that the attorney-client privilege survives the termination of the attorney-client relationship. In her “Motion To Withdraw As Counsel,” Taitz also mentions her view that “the Court should recognize and acknowledge the essential ethical importance of releasing this counsel from her obligations of confidentiality …”