Anthony Robert Martin-Trigona, usually known as Andy Martin (born 1945), is an American perennial candidate who has never been elected to office, running as both a Democrat and a Republican.

[6] On October 17, 2008, Martin filed a lawsuit against the state of Hawaii calling for the public release of Barack Obama's birth certificate and other vital records.

[9] His father, Ralph Beneducci Martin-Trigona, was of Italian, Maltese, and English descent, and his mother, Helen Anthony (née Vasiliou), was Greek American.

In 1973 the Illinois Supreme Court refused to grant Martin a license to practice law in the state due to such conduct as attempting to have a parking violation thrown out because it had been "entered by an insane judge" and for commenting that an attorney, who suffers from a mild case of cerebral palsy, was "shaking and tottering and drooling like an idiot.

Just before the election, Martin assaulted two cameramen from WPTV, the NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach, while they were interviewing him at the TV station.

[32] Over the years, Martin has filed numerous lawsuits, and was labeled as a vexatious litigant by Edward Weinfeld, a federal judge for the Southern District of New York, who observed that Martin had a tendency to file "a substantial number of lawsuits of a vexatious, frivolous and scandalous nature.

In a 1983 bankruptcy case, Martin filed a motion calling the presiding judge "a crooked, slimy Jew who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race.

"[33] When later pressed in an interview about his remarks, Martin claimed that the anti-Semitic comments were inserted into his court papers by malicious judges.

[34] In his ruling, Cabranes noted that Martin had a tendency to file legal actions with "persistence, viciousness, and general disregard for decency and logic."

In 1993 the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals determined that his mother was acting in concert with him by filing a federal civil rights action against several Florida state officials.

In throwing out the suit, the Eleventh Circuit called Martin "a notoriously vexatious and vindictive litigator who has long abused the American legal system.

"[34] Most recently, a libel and invasion of privacy suit against Media Matters and its founder, David Brock, was dismissed with prejudice because Martin had violated the terms of the injunction.

"[5] Within a few days, the conservative site Free Republic picked up Martin's press release, triggering a long discussion.

[3] In October, a conservative blog, Infidel Bloggers Alliance, reposted Martin's press release in response to a question about Obama's heritage.

[43] Then, on December 26, conservative activist Ted Sampley, co-founder of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, posted a column suggesting Obama was a closeted Muslim, heavily quoting Martin's original press release.

Hayes believes that the email was likely a slightly altered version of the Sampley article, which was in turn heavily based on Martin's 2004 press release.

According to The New York Times, "The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.

[45] Then-Fox Senior Vice President Bill Shine later retracted support for Martin as a guest: "Having that guy on was a mistake.

"[46] In an interview featured on the CNN network's American Morning program on October 27, 2008, Martin explicitly abandoned his view that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

[6] In the interview, Martin said that Obama was not the son of Barack Obama, Sr., but rather the son of Frank Marshall Davis, an African American journalist and political activist who wrote for a newspaper in Hawaii in the 1940s and 1950s that was accused by the House Un-American Activities Committee as being a front for the Communist Party USA.