The State Bar of California is investigating Orly Taitz, a process that could ultimately result in the Birther attorney’s disbarment, Taitz and her lawyer confirmed to TPMmuckraker.
The investigation was prompted at least in part by a sanction for professional misconduct against Taitz in a Birther case in federal court in Georgia. Taitz continues to fight the $20,000 fine, which was imposed on her for making frivolous filings.
The bar’s options for disciplinary action range from private reproval to disbarment. The latter punishment usually comes in cases in which attorneys “have a history of misconduct” or in which they have “committed a very serious violation, such as perjury or stealing client funds,” according to the bar’s Web site.
When Clay Land, the judge in the Georgia case, imposed the fine on Taitz in October, he also directed that a copy of his scathing 43-page order be sent to the California bar “for whatever use it deems appropriate.”
The bar has asked Taitz to respond to Land’s sanction, Taitz told TPMmuckraker in an email.
“Mandela had to spend years in prison, fighting corruption in the government,” she wrote. “Responding to an inquiry from the bar is not that bad in comparison, is not such a high price to pay fighting massive fraud in the government, which allowed illegitimate Obama to get in the White House without as much as a valid social security number and without as much as an original birth certificate with the name of the doctor and hospital.”
Jonathan Levy, Taitz’s lawyer in the appeal of the sanction, suggested in an interview that a third party — not the government and not one of Taitz’s clients — had filed a complaint against Taitz. “It raises issues about whether there is a witch hunt going on here,” he said.
We’ve previously reported at least one other bar complaint against Taitz, filed by a fellow member of the California bar after Taitz called for Judge Land to be tried for treason.
Reached on the phone yesterday, the bar investigator assigned to Taitz’s case, Robin Littlefield, told TPMmuckraker she could not comment. “All our investigations are confidential until there’s been a formal filing of disciplinary action,” she said.”
But Taitz has, on her blog, has called on supporters to write to Littlefield and tell her that the “CA Attorneys’ bar needs to act not as a tool of the Democratic party, not as a political hack, but as an organization devoted to upholding the Constitution and rule of law and needs to stand up and support me, and provide me with legal and financial help.”
Taitz was admitted to the bar in 2002.