UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE EIGHTEENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT

IN AND FOR DUPAGE COUNTY, ILLINOIS  

IN CHANCERY

No. 2009MR000111

Status Date: 5/20/09

Assigned to: 2005

ANDY MARTIN,

Plaintiff,                  

v.                               

ROBERT GIBBS,

JIM RUTENBERG,

NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY,

ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER, JR.,

GAIL COLLINS,                        

RUPERT MURDOCH,

WILLIAM SHINE,                       

KEITH OLBERMANN,

RANDY SCHULTZ,                       

JENNER & BLOCK,

DAVID P. SANDERS,

TOM SLADE,

Defendants.

____________________________/

COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY JUDGMENT AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

Preliminary Statement

Perhaps the most dramatic media moment of the 2008 presidential campaign was an edition of Hannity’s America on Fox News Channel that laid out with some coherence the questions about Barack Obama’s secret past. The Hannity program elicited an explosive response from the hard left media in America, and prompted the New York Times (“Times”) to run two stories.

The Times’ false and malicious reporting in turn triggered an ongoing orgy of left-wing media attacks on Plaintiff, none of these reports having any factual or legal validity as to their most incendiary claims. And, in a “no good deed goes unpunished” category, Fox News then “disinvited” Plaintiff from his appearance on the program as an appeasement to Barack Obama by Rupert Murdoch.

[COUNT ONE]

[COMMON LAW DEFAMATION]

1. Jurisdiction and venue

a. This court has general common law jurisdiction to hear and determine the matters presented.

b. Venue is proper in DuPage County. Plaintiff is based in Illinois.

2. Factual allegations

a. The parties

A. The Plaintiff

1) Plaintiff has been a controversial writer for over forty (40) years.

2) In 2004, Plaintiff wrote of Barack Obama that Obama had a Muslim family background. That claim was objectively true. Despite the fact that the claim is objectively true, and that Obama’s own “family” has repeatedly admitted to Muslin adherence, the defendants have relentlessly attacked Plaintiff and claimed that Obama’s past religious heritage is a “rumor.”

3) Plaintiff first sued the New York Times in early 2008 after the Times published a magazine piece saying Plaintiff’s Muslim claims had been “debunked.” Plaintiff’s claims have never at any time been debunked. They were and remain completely true, factual and accurate. Plaintiff has amended his claims to reflect his subsequent belief that Barack Obama's real, i.e. biological, father was/is Frank Marshall Davis, but that hypothesis awaits blood tests to be fully proven. Nevertheless, anyone who believes Barack Obama, Sr. is President Barack Obama, Jr.’s. father is bound by the Muslim history of senior.

4) Defendants Jenner and Sanders appeared before a judge in secret, and proceeded to argue their defenses at a time when they were aware that Plaintiff was across the hall in the same courthouse and Plaintiff was unaware of the scheduled Times hearing being orchestrated by Jenner and Sanders. Ex parte communication is illegal; when a lawyer schemes to conduct an ex parte proceeding that is grossly illegal. Jenner and Sanders were acting illegally to further the interests of defendant Sulzberger and the New York Times.

4) Plaintiff was contacted by Fox News Channel at some point during the summer of 2008. The originally scheduled interview between Fox and Plaintiff was cancelled due to the New Orleans hurricane. Eventually Fox contacted Plaintiff and asked if he would be available during the week of September 29, 2008.

5) Since 2004, Plaintiff has conducted extensive, continuing research on Mr. Obama and his secretive past. Even today, as this lawsuit is filed and Obama sits in the White House, large areas of Obama’s life remain unknown. Obama has concealed his original birth certificate, he has concealed his college records and he has never been examined thoroughly on his links to William Ayers, America’s most notorious domestic terrorist, or Khalid Al-Mansour, a virulent opponent of White America.

6) With regard to Ayers in particular, Obama’s brief responses have been false and misleading. For example, he once referred to Ayers as a “someone in the neighborhood” when the Ayers/Obama relationship was much more extensive.        

7) Liberal (hard left) media such as the Times and others were intent on smearing Plaintiff and destroying the sale of his book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask.

B.  The defendants

1) Robert Gibbs is sued in his private capacity as press secretary of the Obama for President Campaign.

2) Jim Rutenberg is a reporter for the New York Times.

3) The New York Times Company is a failing media enterprise that was recently bailed out by a Mexican billionaire.

4) Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. controls the majority of stockholder votes at the New York Times and acts as publisher.

5) Gail Collins is an employee of the New York Times.

6) Rupert Murdoch is a powerful media baron who swings with the political winds. He has been pro and anti-Clinton, and pro and anti-Obama. Plaintiff was apparently caught in one of Murdoch's swings from right to left and from being anti-Obama to genuflecting at the feet of the next president. Murdoch controls the Fox News Channel, which is generally considered a “conservative” media outlet, although Murdoch has been quoted as saying he dislikes some of the conservatives on his own channel.

7) William Shine is a Vice president at Fox News.

8) Keith Olbermann is a “hard left” host on MSNBC, a “liberal” media outlet.

9) Randy Schultz is a hard left commentator for the Palm Beach Post.

10) David P. Sanders is a partner at Jenner & Block.

11) Tom Slade is an influence peddler in Tallahassee who formerly headed the Florida Republican Party.

b. The Facts Giving Rise to This Lawsuit

A. Plaintiff was interviewed by Fox News from New York. Fox had carefully prepared a list of questions for Plaintiff, and Plaintiff supplied his answers from the Fox News studio in Chicago.

B. Plaintiff presented his own views, opinions and conclusions concerning Mr. Obama and his associates. With all due respect, the Hannity program was the only coherent mainstream media presentation during the campaign that even attempted to place all of Obama’s lacunae in some sort of order.

C. The day following the Fox program the New York Times reported that Plaintiff “came under strong attack from liberals on Monday,” see attached Exhibit A. Although Rutenberg's reporting was defamatory in some areas, Rutenberg’s report clearly indicated he had come under pressure to publish a story. Rutenberg wrote “Many noted that the Republican Party of Florida decided against backing his bid…” Rutenberg never disclosed who the “many” were who had contacted him. The claim that the Republican Party had not supported him in 1996 was objectively false and totally irrelevant to 2008. Nevertheless, because the false claims Rutenberg made were peripheral to the story, Plaintiff did not immediately threaten a libel lawsuit.

D. On October 8th defendant Gibbs attacked Sean Hannity, accusing Hannity of consorting with an “anti-Semite,” namely Plaintiff. Gibbs screamed on national television that Plaintiff was an anti-Semite.

D. On October 13, 2008 Rutenberg published a second article, which solidified Plaintiff’s belief that Hannity’s program had been the critical point of the mainstream media campaign. Rutenberg, apparently acting under pressure from someone again, sought to portray Plaintiff in a false light:

1) Rutenberg said Plaintiff “was blocked in the 1970’s after a psychiatric finding…” As Rutenberg had been told, Plaintiff has never seen a psychiatrist in his life. Plaintiff was interviewed for perhaps sixty seconds, possibly ninety seconds, by someone at U. S. Army draft station, who excused plaintiff from service after that person learned Plaintiff had filed a lawsuit challenging the draft. The "draft physical" was itself a form of Illinois Supreme Court harassment, because Plaintiff told Rutenberg that Plaintiff already held an Honorable Discharge from the U. S. Air Force Reserve and thus was not subject to being drafted. Rutenberg also withheld that fact, so as to make his false psychiatric claim appear more credible. The entire draft physical exchange took perhaps a minute, perhaps a minute and a half, and involved no psychiatric examination of any kind. The Illinois Supreme Court clearly disclosed the source of this silly claim, although the Court still misused the draft physical to retaliate against Plaintiff for being part of a team that helped remove two corrupt Illinois Supreme Court judges in 1969.  Thus, Rutenberg’s “report” was not even a fair synopsis of what the Illinois Supreme Court had written.

2) Had Rutenberg told his readers the facts about the “psychiatric finding,” which was no finding at all, instead of placing Plaintiff in a false light, most people would have laughed at Rutenberg's reporting and would have seen his claims for the transparent smear they were.

3) Rutenberg quoted Tom Slade at length. Slade is one of the legendary influence peddlers of Florida politics. While Slade himself smeared Plaintiff in 1996, the Republican Party at no time voted any attack on Plaintiff. Rutenberg tried to convey the false impression, after being fully advised of the facts, that Slade’s personal attacks constituted an attack by the Party, when that claim was objectively false. Thus, in both the Florida Party and “psychiatric” matters, Rutenberg published false and misleading claims after being advised of the objective facts; as such his action was intentional and reckless. Rutenberg also created false facts of his own. He claimed that Plaintiff had been the subject of a “spitefully written by an evaluator” report, when Plaintiff has never made any such claim. Rutenberg taped his interviews with Plaintiff, so the tapes are the best evidence of what was said by each.

4) Rutenberg falsely suggested that Plaintiff had admitted to being an anti-Semite. He quoted Plaintiff, out of context, as saying “The record speaks for itself.” Plaintiff had denied any claims of anti-Semitism, and that record does speak for itself, not the contrary impression Rutenberg sought to convey.

E. Rutenberg's false reporting about Plaintiff created a media firestorm, as Gibbs and Obama tried to shift attention from Obama’s own terrorist links to an obscure lawsuit in which Plaintiff was a party over a quarter of a century ago:

1) Defendant Olbermann called Plaintiff a “transparent nut job” based on Rutenberg’s misinformation about Plaintiff’s “draft physical.”

2) Defendant Collins accused Plaintiff  of “filing lawsuits laced with paranoia and anti-Semitism.”

3) Rupert Murdoch, who was seeking to appease Obama, sent his underling, defendant Shine, out to the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz to smear Plaintiff and call interviewing Plaintiff a mistake. Murdoch’s sensitivity to Obama may be enhanced by the fact that Murdoch himself has mixed-race children. Plaintiff’s professional integrity and competence was attacked by Shine on the basis of an unrelated lawsuit a quarter-century ago. It was despicable behavior by Fox News.

4) Despite the fact that Sulzberger’s company had already been sued once for defaming Plaintiff, Sulzberger failed to exercise any care or control over the pressures placed on Rutenberg to repeatedly defame Plaintiff.

5) Gibbs’ accusations against Plaintiff were objectively false, as any jury would determine, and were intended to shift attention from Obama’s links to anti-Americans such as William Ayers and Khalid Al-Mansour.

3.  Legal claim

a. Plaintiff was indeed involved in an unpleasant bankruptcy case over 25 years ago. He was an innocent man who was politically kidnapped and, while absent, had his property stolen.

b. The law protects claims made in lawsuits pursuant to the judicial privilege because claims in lawsuits are often painful, outrageous and based on partial information at the pleading stage.

c. Plaintiff’s claim that he was the victim of racial bigotry was a claim that was later found to be cognizable legal theory in a subsequent decision by the U. S. Supreme Court, Shaare Tefila v. Cobb, 481 U.S. 615 (1987).

d. The claim that plaintiff is an anti-Semite or anti-Semitic is false. Plaintiff became involuntarily embroiled in a controversy in Connecticut over which he had no control because he was the innocent victim of a political kidnapping by corrupt individuals in Illinois.

e. The defendants herein, moreover, were seeking to use a 25 year-old lawsuit to claim that Plaintiff is an anti-Semite. Obviously, placed in context, unpleasant but factual allegations from a 25 year-old lawsuit would have little or no influence on any member of the public. The claim that someone somehow is currently an anti-Semite could be a matter of concern.

f. Although Plaintiff is clearly a public figure, defendants clearly acted with reckless disregard for the truth and with actual malice to defame Plaintiff based on political pressure directed at the New York Times and its employees.

g. Defendants Jenner & Block and Sanders were similarly trying to smear Plaintiff by arranging to appear ex parte before a judge on behalf of the New York Times, so they could defame Plaintiff at a time when he was not there to defend himself. Such secret proceedings were scurrilous and unlawful.

h. By way of comparison, The Washington Post published a long article based on “research” about Plaintiff’s status as an Internet powerhouse. The Post was also the original source of Rutenberg's claims from Danielle Allen, another Obama operative. The Post never saw fit to mention the irrelevant 25 year-old claims. Plaintiff has never sued the Washington Post. When defendant Shine says that an old lawsuit was a basis to exclude Plaintiff from being interviewed, he is engaging in a transparent smear which was not recognized by the Washington Post itself.

i. Plaintiff stands by all of the claims he made in his Fox News interview. Plaintiff’s claims were based on extensive and continuing inquiry, and further based on reasonable inferences drawn from the available evidence concerning Barack Obama’s secret life which, to this date, has never seen the light of day. Obama may be president, but he is still “The Man Behind The Mask.” Plaintiff is continuing to pursue the truth about Obama, as are other writers such as David Maraniss.

4. Demand for judgment

Plaintiff sues and demands declaratory judgment and injunctive relief as follows:

a. Declaratory and injunctive relief that the reporting by the defendant Times and Rutenberg was false and defamatory, and the subsequent comments by other defendants based on that false reporting were similarly false and defamatory.

b. Ancillary money damages in an amount not to exceed $50,000 on all counts, with the total recovery in this action from all defendants limited to $50,000.

[COUNT TWO]

[FALSE LIGHT]

1-2. Plaintiff repeats and realleges Paragraphs 1-2 of Count One and further pleads:

3. Legal claim

a. The common law of Illinois recognizes the tort of “false light.”

b. Had Rutenberg told his readers the truth about Plaintiff’s “finding,” his own professional integrity would have been compromised. Rutenberg sought to falsely portray Plaintiff as someone with a psychiatric history, when Plaintiff has never received any mental health investigation or treatment. No adult who was alive in the 1960’s and 70’s would do anything but laugh if they were told Rutenberg was basing his accusations on a 60-second Army draft physical.

c. Likewise, although Rutenberg was told the Republican Party had never attacked Plaintiff, because of the Party's need for procedural sue process and the Florida Party’s own Constitution, Rutenberg sought to portray Slade’s smears as being authorized by a vote of the party, when Rutenberg was aware that claim was false.

d. Rutenberg similarly sought to portray Plaintiff as being against “Jews.” Plaintiff did indeed disparage the corrupt lawyers and judges in the bankruptcy and district courts in Connecticut, all of whom with one exception were unfortunately Jewish, but he did so based on their specific misconduct in a lawsuit. All of his accusations were factually based. Once again, Rutenberg was seeking to portray the impression that Plaintiff is anti-Semitic because of claims made in a 25 year-old lawsuit. Exposing and opposing bigotry does not become bigotry merely because the wrongdoers happen to be predominantly Jewish.

4. Demand for judgment

Plaintiff sues and demands declaratory judgment and injunctive relief as follows:

a. Declaratory and injunctive relief that the reporting by the defendant Times and Rutenberg was false and defamatory, and the subsequent comments by other defendants based on that false reporting were similarly false and defamatory.

b. Ancillary money damages in an amount not to exceed $50,000 on all counts, with the total recovery in this action from all defendants limited to $50,000.

Dated: January  21, 2009

Respectfully submitted,

ANDY MARTIN

NATIONAL LITIGATION CENTER

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ANDY MARTIN

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