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Conspiracy theories about the citizenship of Barack Obama hold that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore not eligible to be President of the United States under Article Two of the United States Constitution. Proponents of these theories are often referred to as birthers.

Some of these conspiracy theories allege that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, or that his birth certificate is a forgery. Others allege that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia and lost his United States citizenship, or that because he had dual citizenship at birth (British and American), he cannot be a natural born-citizen of the United States.

These conspiracy theories received attention in mid-2008 following Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries, in late 2008–early 2009 with regard to the Electoral College vote and Obama's inauguration, and in late 2010 when Hawaii's recently elected governor, Neil Abercrombie, said he would like to release more information about Obama's birth, to dispel the rumors. Abercrombie abandoned that effort in early 2011 because privacy laws barred him from disclosing a person's birth documentation without that person's consent.

These claims are promoted by a number of fringe theorists and political opponents, some of whom filed lawsuits that sought to disqualify Obama from running for, or being confirmed as, President, or to obtain additional proof that he is qualified. All of the cases have been rejected in lower courts. Three post-election suits were dismissed by the Supreme Court of the United States. Although Obama was confirmed as president-elect by Congress on January 8, 2009, and sworn in as President on January 20, litigation continued into his presidency. The term "birthers" parallels the nickname "truthers" for adherents of 9/11 conspiracy theories.

In 2008, the Obama campaign released his birth certificate, certified by the Hawaii Department of Health, and posted a scanned image of it online. The posted certificate states that Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961. The certificate also states, "This copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding". Frequent arguments of those questioning Obama's eligibility are that he has not released a photocopy of his "original" or "long form" birth certificate, but rather a redacted "short form" version. It has also been claimed that the use of the term "certification of live birth" on the document means it is not equivalent to one's "birth certificate". These arguments have been debunked numerous times by media investigations, every judicial forum that has addressed the matter, and Hawaiian government officials—a consensus of whom have concluded that the certificate released by the Obama campaign is indeed his official birth certificate. Asked about this, Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo stated that Hawaii "does not have a short-form or long-form certificate". Moreover, the director of her Department has confirmed that the state "has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures".

In 1961, birth notices for Barack Obama were published in both the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on August 13 and August 14, 1961, respectively, listing the home address of Obama's parents as 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu. On November 9, 2008, in response to the persistent rumors, the Advertiser posted on its web site a screenshot of the announcement taken from its microfilmed archives. Such notices were sent to newspapers routinely by the Hawaii Department of Health.

Nevertheless, some Republican elected officials have expressed skepticism about Obama's citizenship or have displayed a lack of willingness to acknowledge it, while Republican members of the U.S. Congress and state assemblies have proposed and voted for legislation that would require presidential candidates to provide documentation of their qualifications to be president, including natural-born citizenship. Additionally, polls conducted in 2010 suggested that more than a quarter of adult Americans doubted Obama's U.S. birth.

Background

Early life of Obama

People who have doubts about Obama's eligibility question, or reject, at least some of the following details about his early life:

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital (now called Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children) in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Ann Dunham, from Wichita, Kansas. Obama's father was Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya Colony. Obama's parents were divorced in 1964. His mother subsequently married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, who was attending the University of Hawaii. The family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1967, where they remained until Obama was ten years old. Obama then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. He attended kindergarten in 1966–1967 at Noelani Elementary School. One of his high school teachers, who was acquainted with his mother at the time, remembered the day of his birth. Obama has resided continuously in the United States since 1971.

Origins of the claims

During the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential primaries and the subsequent presidential election, numerous chain e-mails circulated false rumors about Obama's origin, religion and birth certificate.

Jim Geraghty of the conservative website National Review Online may have sparked further speculation when he asked that Obama release his birth certificate. Geraghty wrote that releasing his birth certificate could debunk several false rumors circulating on the Internet, namely: that his middle name was originally Muhammad rather than Hussein; that his mother had originally named him "Barry" rather than "Barack"; and that Barack Obama, Sr. was not his biological father, as well as the rumor that Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen.

Release of the birth certificate

On June 12, 2008, Obama's campaign responded to the rumors by posting on a website called "Fight The Smears", a copy of Obama's birth certificate that had been obtained from the Hawaii Department of Health in June 2007. In releasing the certificate, the Obama website declared that the rumors "aren't actually about that piece of paper — they're about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen". The campaign also provided the Daily Kos blog with a copy of the document.

The image posted online at Obama's website is a "Certification of Live Birth" and is sometimes referred to as a short form birth certificate. It contains less information than the longer "Certificate of Live Birth". FactCheck.org states that the short form is "prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding". Obama's short form was laser-printed and certified by the State of Hawaii on June 6, 2007. The Hawaii State Department of Health no longer issues the long-form Certificate and issues only the shorter Certification upon request.

Referring to this release, National Review columnist Jim Geraghty, said on June 12, 2008, that:

...this document is what he or someone authorized by him was given by the state out of its records. Barring some vast conspiracy within the Hawaii State Department of Health, there is no reason to think his birth certificate would have any different data.

Rejection by conspiracy theorists

The release of the certificate resulted in a fresh round of questions. It was asserted that the certificate had been digitally forged with Adobe Photoshop and lacked a stamped seal of the state, which led them to demand that Obama release his "original" 1961 birth certificate. Jerome Corsi, author of the book The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, told Fox News that "the campaign has a false, fake birth certificate posted on their website... it's been shown to have watermarks from Photoshop. It's a fake document that's on the Web site right now, and the original birth certificate the campaign refuses to produce." This view was rejected by the state authorities, the media and independent factchecking organizations. FactCheck.org was invited to view the Obama campaign's hard copy of the candidate's Certification of Live Birth and concluded:

FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate. We conclude that it meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship. Claims that the document lacks a raised seal or a signature are false. We have posted high-resolution photographs of the document as "supporting documents" to this article. Our conclusion: Obama was born in the U.S.A. just as he has always said.

Official response

The director of Hawaii's Department of Health, Chiyome Fukino, issued a statement confirming that the state held Obama's "original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". Noting "there have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama's official birth certificate", Fukino explained that the department was prohibited by state law from releasing it to "persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record." She stated: "No state official, including Gov. Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii." According to CNN's researchers, the original birth certificate no longer exists, as Hawaii discarded all paper birth records in 2001, and the certification of live birth is the official copy.

Contradicting CNN, Janice Okubo, public information officer for the Hawaii DOH, said "We don't destroy vital records." The Health Department's director emphasized the assertion:

I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawai'i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai'i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai'i and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008, over eight months ago.

Claims

Obama was born in Kenya

Obama's paternal step-grandmother's version of events

An incorrect but popularly reported claim is that his father's stepmother, Sarah Obama, told Anabaptist Bishop Ron McRae in a recorded transatlantic telephone conversation that she was present when Obama was born in Kenya.

The McClatchy newspapers gave an explanation of how the false story about Obama's step-grandmother began. The tape is cut off in the middle of the conversation, before the passage in which she clarifies her meaning: "'Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America,' the translator says after talking to the woman. ... Another response later says, 'Obama in Hawaii. Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii.'"

Sarah Obama shed more light on the controversy in a 2007 interview with the Tribune Company. In the interview, Obama's paternal step grandmother stated that six months after Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham were married, she received a letter at her home in Kenya announcing the birth of Barack Obama II, who was born August 4, 1961.

Kenyan "birth certificate"

On August 2, 2009, Orly Taitz released and attached to court documents a purported Kenyan birth certificate which she said, if authenticated and shown to be genuine, would significantly narrow and shorten the discovery and pre-trial litigation period in the Keyes v. Bowen lawsuit. Legal documents submitted describe the document as an "unauthenticated color photocopy of certified copy of registration of birth". The document was almost immediately revealed to be a forgery. It purports to have been issued by the "Republic of Kenya", when in fact, such a state did not yet exist at the time of Obama's birth as indicated on the document (Kenya was a British Colony until 1963).

Subsequently, evidence was unearthed that the alleged Kenyan birth certificate is a modified version of a 1959 Australian birth certificate found on an online genealogy website. The Washington Independent website cited an anonymous blogger as having taken credit for the forgery and posting four photos substantiating the claim. Examples of actual 1961 Kenyan birth certificates have also been revealed, which look substantially different from the document Taitz submitted to the court.

Obama was not born in Hawaii

Despite the existence of Obama's Hawaii certification of live birth, Lt. Col Terry Lakin's attorney, among others, has claimed that anyone, including foreign-born children, could acquire a Hawaiian certification of live birth, and so Obama's possession of such a certificate does not prove that he was born in Hawaii. However, the suggestion that this could have applied to Obama was rejected by Janice Okubo, director of communications for the Hawaii Department of Health: "If you were born in Bali, for example, you could get a certificate from the state of Hawaii saying you were born in Bali. You could not get a certificate saying you were born in Honolulu. The state has to verify a fact like that for it to appear on the certificate". Another fact that refutes this specific claim is that the law allowing foreign-born children to obtain Hawaiian birth certificates did not exist until 20 years after Obama was born, while Obama’s published birth certificate says his birth information was recorded four days after his birth in 1961, and explicitly states that he was born in Honolulu.

Additionally, some people claim that the information in the birth certificate only has to be based on the testimony of one parent.

On July 27, 2009, Fukino issued a statement explicitly stating she has "seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."

Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo elaborated on state policy for the release of vital records: "If someone from Obama's campaign gave us permission in person and presented some kind of verification that he or she was Obama's designee, we could release the vital record." A hospital spokesperson at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children has said that their standard procedure is to neither confirm nor deny Obama was born there, "even though all the information out there says he was born at Kapiolani Hospital", citing federal privacy laws.

In 1961, birth notices for Barack Obama were published in both the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on August 13 and August 14, 1961, respectively, listing the home address of Obama's parents as 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu. On November 9, 2008, in response to the persistent rumors, the Advertiser posted on its web site a screenshot of the announcement taken from its microfilmed archives. Such notices were sent to newspapers routinely by the Hawaii Department of Health.

In an editorial published on July 29, 2009, the Star-Bulletin pointed out that both newspapers' vital-statistics columns are available on microfilm in the main state library. "Were the state Department of Health and Obama's parents really in cahoots to give false information to the newspapers, perhaps intending to clear the way for the baby to someday be elected president of the United States?" the newspaper asked.

Andrew Malcolm, of the Los Angeles Times, has argued that Obama would be eligible for the presidency, because his mother was an American citizen, irrespective of where he was born, saying that Obama's mother "could have been on Mars when wee Barry emerged and he'd still be American." According to UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh, in the hypothetical scenario that Obama was born outside the U.S., he would not be a natural-born citizen since the then-applicable law would have required Obama's mother to have been in the U.S. at least "five years after the age of 14", but Ann Dunham was three months shy of her 19th birthday when Obama was born.

Loss of U.S. citizenship

It has been suggested that Obama obtained Indonesian citizenship (and thus may have lost U.S. citizenship) when he lived there as a child. As an attempt to prove that Obama was no longer a U.S. citizen (or held dual citizenship), some claim his 1981 trip to Pakistan took place at a time when there was supposedly a ban on United States passport holders entering that country, which would in turn have required him to use a non-U.S. passport.

There was in fact no such ban; a New York Times article and U.S. State Department travel advisories from 1981 make it clear that travel to Pakistan by U.S. passport holders was possible at that time.

Obama is a U.S. citizen, but not a natural-born citizen

Another theory of Obama's ineligibility is that, regardless of his place of birth, he does not meet the constitutional definition of a natural-born citizen.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...." According to Snopes, "Since Hawaii is part of the United States, even if Barack Obama's parents were both non-U.S. citizens who hadn't even set foot in the country until just before he was born, he'd still qualify as a natural-born citizen." Despite this, there have been claims that, although born in Hawaii, Obama does not qualify as a "natural-born citizen".

Parental citizenship claims

Some campaigners, such as Leo Donofrio, contend that, in order for a person to be a natural-born citizen within the meaning of Article II, Section 1, it is necessary that both parents be U.S. citizens at the time of that person's birth. Those who subscribe to this theory argue that since Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, Obama could not have been a natural-born citizen, and is therefore ineligible to be President of the United States.

Dual citizenship claims

A similar but distinct theory contends that a person cannot be a natural-born citizen if he is a dual citizen at birth. Those who subscribe to this theory argue that because Obama's father held Citizenship of the UK and colonies, and not U.S. citizenship, at the time Obama was born, Obama was born a dual citizen and therefore was not a natural-born citizen.

In August 2008, the Rocky Mountain News ran an online article asserting that Obama is both a U.S. and a Kenyan citizen. This turned out to be incorrect. Although the paper published an apology for the mistake, it provided more fuel for online rumors about Obama's eligibility for the presidency. FactCheck noted that Obama had indeed been a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) under British law, by virtue of his descent from a Kenyan father at a time when Kenya was a British colony, and lost CUKC citizenship and became a Kenyan citizen when that country gained independence in 1963. However, Kenya's constitution prohibits dual citizenship in adulthood. Obama had therefore automatically lost his Kenyan citizenship at age 23, in 1984, by failing to formally renounce any non-Kenyan citizenship and swear an oath of allegiance to Kenya.

Chester Arthur

According to either the parental citizenship or the dual citizenship theories, Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States (1881–1885), would also not have been qualified for the office. His father, a Protestant preacher from Ireland, was a British subject who did not naturalize as a U.S. citizen until some years after the future President's birth.

Campaigners and proponents

Notable advocates of the view that Obama may not be eligible for the Presidency include Philip J. Berg, a Pennsylvania attorney and 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Berg describes himself as a "moderate to liberal" Democrat who backed Hillary Clinton for president. Another notable advocate is Alan Keyes, who was defeated by Obama in the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate election, served as a diplomat in the Reagan administration, and is currently a media personality and self described "conservative political activist". Orly Taitz, a California dentist and attorney who emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel, then to the United States, and holds dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship, has been called the "queen bee of the birthers", because she is often seen as the face of the movement. Other notable advocates include Andy Martin, a perennial candidate who was "widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign" that Obama is a secret Muslim, and Robert L. Schulz, a tax protester and activist who placed full-page advertisements in the Chicago Tribune in December 2008 arguing that Obama had been born in Kenya or had subsequently renounced U.S. citizenship. The Constitution Party, a dominionist third party, is also campaigning for release of Obama's original long-form certificate.

The website AmericaMustKnow.com encouraged visitors to lobby members of the Electoral College to vote against Obama's confirmation as President and become faithless electors. Electors around the country received numerous letters and e-mails contending that Obama's birth certificate is a forgery and that he was born in Kenya, and requesting that Obama be denied the presidency. Some of the online campaigners coordinated their efforts with weekly conference calls, in which they discussed the latest news and how to advance the story.

The campaign has also been supported by the WorldNetDaily (WND) website, which sponsored a letter-writing campaign to the Supreme Court. WND's publisher Joseph Farah has written a number of editorials arguing that Obama's eligibility needs to be confirmed. WND has mounted an advertising campaign, using electronic billboards to ask "Where's The Birth Certificate?".

The talk radio hosts Michael Savage, G. Gordon Liddy, Brian Sussman, Lars Larson, Bob Grant, Jim Quinn, Rose Tennent, Barbara Simpson, Mark Davis, and Fred Grandy have all promoted the ineligibility claims on their radio shows. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs have also broached the issue several times on their shows. Savage has asserted: "We're getting ready for the Communist takeover of America with a noncitizen at the helm."

Some celebrities have promoted or touched upon the ineligibility claims, as well. In August 2009, actor Chuck Norris, while not embracing the eligibility claims, wrote an open letter to Obama urging that he officially release his "original birth certificate", saying, "Refusing to post your original birth certificate is an unwise political and leadership decision that is enabling the 'birther' controversy." In December 2010, Baltimore Orioles baseball player Luke Scott asserted in a Yahoo! interview that Obama "was not born here" and that his birth certificate was never released.

The anti-Obama campaigners have not, however, been unanimous in their approach. For example, WorldNetDaily has been critical of Philip Berg's forgery claims, saying that a "WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts ... found the document to be authentic". At the same time, WND has been urging Obama to release his original long-form certificate, and WND contends that "Hawaii at the time of Obama's birth allowed births that took place in foreign countries to be registered in Hawaii," ignoring the fact that a birth certificate issued in such circumstances would list the actual place of birth, not a Hawaiian location such as Honolulu. A subsequent WND article seemed to backtrack on the earlier one, saying of the experts it had quoted earlier that "None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery." This apparent reversal prompted MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to declare WND's Joseph Farah to be his "Worst Person in the World" for January 5, 2009.

According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, "the birther movement has gained a large following on the radical right... it has been adopted by the most noxious elements out there". Some of those "noxious elements" include a number of avowed white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. James von Brunn, an avowed white supremacist charged as the gunman in the June 10, 2009, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting, had previously posted messages to the Internet accusing Obama and the media of hiding documents about his life. Ben Smith of The Politico commented: "The penetration of the birther mythology into the violent fringe has to be a worry for the Secret Service, because at its heart, it's about denying Obama's legitimacy to hold the office of president."

Political candidates and elected officials

Richard Shelby

In February 2009, a local Alabama newspaper reported that at a town hall meeting Senator Richard Shelby was asked if there was any truth to the rumors that Obama was not a natural-born citizen. According to the paper, Shelby responded that "Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate." A Shelby spokesperson denied the story, but the newspaper stood by it.

Roy Blunt

On July 28, 2009, Mike Stark approached Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt asking him about the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen. Blunt responded: "What I don’t know is why the President can’t produce a birth certificate. I don’t know anybody else that can’t produce one. And I think that’s a legitimate question. No health records, no birth certificate." Blunt's spokesperson later claimed that the quote was taken out of context.

Jean Schmidt

After giving a speech at the Voice of America Freedom Rally in West Chester, Ohio on September 5, 2009, Republican congresswoman Jean Schmidt replied to a woman who commented that Obama was ineligible for the Presidency, "I agree with you. But the courts don't." Schmidt's office subsequently responded that a video clip of this comment was "taken out of context", and reiterated that her stated position is that Obama is a citizen. She had earlier voted to certify the Electoral College vote affirming his presidency, and had said she believes Obama is a U.S. citizen. The statement was issued in response to a July 28, 2009, YouTube video in which Schmidt was seen running away from Mike Stark when he asked whether or not she had any questions about President Obama’s citizenship status.

Nathan Deal

Representative Nathan Deal won the Republican primary for the Georgia governorship despite being the first congressman to officially request to see Obama's birth certificate. In November 2009, Deal replied to a question about whether he believed that Obama "is a native-born American citizen who is eligible to serve as president" with a statement that "I am joining several of my colleagues in the House in writing a letter to the President asking that he release a copy of his birth certificate so we can have an answer to this question." Contrasting the differing fates of Deal and former Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney, who lost her primary after endorsing 9/11 conspiracy theories, David Weigel of Slate noted: "Dipping a toe into the birtherism fever swamp didn't stop Deal from winning a statewide primary."

Sarah Palin

On December 3, 2009, Sarah Palin was interviewed on Rusty Humphries' radio talk show. During the interview, Humphries asked Palin if she would make Barack Obama's birth certificate a campaign issue in 2012, should she decide to run. Palin responded, "I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers." Humphries followed up, asking whether she thinks Obama's birth certificate is a fair question to be looking at. Palin answered, "I think it's a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records—all of that is fair game. The McCain–Palin campaign didn't do a good enough job in that area."

After news organizations and blogs picked up the quotation and associated Palin's comments with the "birther" movement, Palin issued a statement on her Facebook page in which she clarified that she meant to say that voters have the right to ask questions, and she herself has never asked Obama to produce a birth certificate. She then went on to compare questioning of Obama's birth certificate to questions that were raised during the 2008 presidential elections about her maternity to her son, Trig. The linkage between the question whether Trig is her son to Barack Obama's birth certificate issues has been heavily criticized by Mark Milian of the Los Angeles Times. In addition, Andrew Sullivan, an established skeptic of Palin's relationship with Trig, wrote in response to her comments: "Palin has never produced Trig's birth certificate or a single piece of objective medical evidence that proves he is indeed her biological son."

Ken Buck

In one case, Ken Buck, the Republican 2010 candidate for Colorado's U.S. Senate seat, attempted to run as a Tea Party candidate, but he was recorded telling a campaign staffer to "tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I'm on the camera".

Tracey Mann

In another case, Tracey Mann, a 2010 candidate running for Congress from Kansas, stated at a candidate forum that Obama "should show his birth certificate to really resolve this thing one way or another." In a radio interview he answered a question as "I think the president of the United States needs to come forth with his papers and show everyone that he's an American citizen and put this issue to bed once and for all." In response, on July 21, 2010, The Hutchinson News, a local paper in Hutchinson, Kansas, withdrew their endorsement of Tracey Mann. In withdrawing their endorsement, the newspaper said that Mann "questions the citizenship of President Barack Obama despite evidence that is irrefutable to most objective, rational people – including a birth certificate released by the Hawaii secretary of state and birth announcements printed in Honolulu's two major newspapers." Mann responded that he was "disappointed and mystified by the Hutchinson News' decision to withdraw their endorsement over a misunderstanding of position", as he is not "interested in pursuing this issue in Congress", and he has "never had any interest in spending any time on the matter". Mann was subsequently defeated in the Republican primary by state senator Tim Huelskamp.

David Vitter

At a townhall meeting in Metairie, Louisiana on July 11, 2010, senator David Vitter responded to a question about Barack Obama's birth certificate saying "I personally don't have standing to bring litigation in court, but I support conservative legal organizations and others who would bring that to court. I think that is the valid and most possibly effective grounds to do it." His campaign did not provide any additional comments on the matter.

Newt Gingrich

On September 11, 2010, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich stated that Obama could only be understood by people who "understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior". While Gingrich did not define what constitutes "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior", White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs accused Gingrich of "trying to appeal to the fringe of people who don't think the president was born in this country." Gibbs then went on to say, "You would normally expect better of somebody who held the position of Speaker of the House, but look, it is political season, and most people will say anything, and Newt Gingrich does that on a, genuinely, on a regular basis."

Andy Martin

In December 2010, Andy Martin (plaintiff in Martin v. Lingle and known as "King of the Birthers") announced his candidacy to seek the 2012 Republican nomination for the President of the United States. In February 2011, Martin's planned appearance at a Republican meeting in Deering, New Hampshire, was cancelled after his anti-Semitic past was discovered.

Mike Huckabee

On February 28, 2011, on Steve Malzberg's radio program Mike Huckabee, a 2008 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, "said that he would 'love to know more' about where President Obama was born and claimed — falsely — that Mr. Obama was raised in Kenya." He continued: " probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

Michele Bachmann

In March 2011, Representative Michele Bachmann told conservative radio host Jeff Katz on his program, "I'll tell you one thing, if I was ever to run for president of the United States, I think the first thing I would do in the first debate is offer my birth certificate, so we can get that off the table." Previously on Good Morning America, when asked about President Obama's origins, she replied, "Well, that isn't for me to state. That's for the president to state."

Donald Trump

In March 2011, during an interview on Good Morning America, Donald Trump said he was seriously considering running for president, that he was a "little" skeptical of Obama's citizenship, and that someone who shares this view shouldn't be so quickly dismissed as an "idiot". Trump added, "Growing up no one knew him." Later, Trump appeared on The View repeating several times that "I want him (Obama) to show his birth certificate." He speculated that "there’s something on that birth certificate that he doesn’t like", a comment which host Whoopi Goldberg described as "the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages". On the March 30, 2011, edition of CNN Newsroom, anchor Suzanne Malveaux commented on Trump's statements, pointing out that she had made a documentary for which she had gone to Hawaii and spoken with people who knew Obama as a child. In an NBC TV interview broadcast on April 7, 2011, Trump said he would not let go of the issue, because he was not satisfied that Obama had proved his citizenship.

Military

Court-martial of Lieutenant Colonel Lakin

On April 13, 2010, the United States Army announced that it would court-martial Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lee Lakin, a surgeon in the Medical Corps, for refusing to report for deployment to Afghanistan. Lakin asserted that due to citizenship issues, Obama is not legally the Commander in Chief, and therefore lacks the authority to send him to Afghanistan. The military revoked Lakin's Pentagon building pass, and confiscated his government laptop computer. Lakin was assigned to Walter Reed Army Medical Center while awaiting trial.

Lakin's case differed from Stefan Cook's case in that Cook volunteered to deploy, received orders, and then filed a civil suit refusing to serve; the military responded by revoking Cook's voluntary orders. Lakin was ordered to deploy and he refused the orders, whereupon the military eventually initiated a criminal law prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. On September 2, 2010, Colonel Denise Lind, the presiding judge, issued a ruling in the case that Obama's status as a natural-born citizen is irrelevant in the court martial case against Lakin, as Obama's eligibility is outside the jurisdiction of the military and falls within the jurisdiction of the United States Congress instead.

Three retired generals have publicly expressed support for Lakin. The first was Army Major General (retired) Paul E. Vallely, a senior military analyst for Fox News. In an interview, Vallely stated "I think many in the military – and many out of the military – question the natural-birth status of Barack Obama." Following Vallely's announcement, Army Major General (retired) Jerry Curry and Air Force Lieutenant General (retired) Thomas G. McInerney also expressed public support for Lakin.

On December 15, 2010 a military jury convicted Lakin on a charge of missing movement by design. He was sentenced to six months confinement and dismissed from service. During the sentencing phase of the trial, the prosecution played a video that Lakin had made and posted online in which he challenged Obama's eligibility. Lakin tearfully responded that the video had been a mistake and that he "would not do this again".

Political impact

"Here is what the Republican party needs to do: we have to say that's crazy. So I'm here to tell you that those who think the president was born somewhere other than Hawaii you’re crazy ... let's knock this crap off and talk about the real differences we have."

Although claims about Obama's citizenship were evaluated in 2008 by the McCain Campaign and ultimately rejected, they became a significant issue among sections of the political right. By mid-2009, the citizenship issue was one of the hottest and most lucrative sources of fundraising for organizations on the right that raise funds through direct mail and telemarketing. Online petition sites such as that of Alan Keyes, who has been collecting signatures on the birth certificate issue, are a major source for generating mailing lists of movement conservatives. The web site WorldNetDaily published more than 200 articles on the subject by July 2009 and has sold billboards, bumper stickers and postcards asking "Where's the birth certificate?" and similar slogans in an effort which has "already raised tens of thousands of dollars."

Moderate conservatives have found themselves "bombarded with birther stuff". Protesters at the Tea Party protests in 2009 carried signs about the birth certificate issue, some of which were recommended by protest organizers. In an incident that attracted widespread media coverage, moderate Republican Representative Michael Castle was booed and heckled during a July 2009 town hall meeting in Georgetown, Delaware, when he told a woman protesting about Obama's birth certificate: "if you’re referring to the president there, he is a citizen of the United States." NBC Nightly News reported that other members of Congress often hear the issue too; an anonymous congressman told the program that he was reluctant to advertise his own town hall meetings for fear of this issue drowning out everything else.

A number of Republican legislators have, proposed legislation and constitutional amendments at the state and federal levels to address issues raised by the birth certificate campaigners. Some Republicans are said to "want the issue to go away", seeing it as a distraction. Democratic commentators have criticized the reluctance of some Republicans to distance themselves from the proponents of the conspiracy theories, suggesting that "Republican officials are reluctant to denounce the birthers for fear of alienating an energetic part of their party's base". NBC News' "First Read" team commented: "the real story in all of this is that Republican Party has a HUGE problem with its base right now." Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele released a statement through his spokesperson saying, "Chairman Steele believes that this is an unnecessary distraction and believes that the president is a U.S. citizen."

Conservative Joel Pollak, writing for The American Thinker, has stated that the reason the "Birther theory" has caught on particularly among conservatives, is the weakness of the Republican opposition, stating:

In the absence of strong Republican leadership, some find the Birther theory a compelling, if desperate, solution. Yet it is ultimately a self-destructive one — not just because it is almost certainly false, but because it contradicts the essential spirit of the conservative movement.

Political analyst Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic and CBS News, suggests that the birther phenomenon goes to the heart of the dilemma now facing the Republican Party, positing that

Republican presidential candidates need to figure out how to diffuse angry birthers who are bound to show up and demand their attention. If they give credence to the birthers, they're not only advancing ignorance but also betraying the narrowness of their base. If they dismiss this growing movement, they might drive birthers to find more extreme candidates, which will fragment a Republican political coalition.

Political analyst Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Sunday Times, stated

The demographics tell the basic story: a black man is president and a large majority of white southerners cannot accept that, even in 2009. They grasp conspiracy theories to wish Obama — and the America he represents — away. Since white southerners comprise an increasing proportion of the 22% of Americans who still describe themselves as Republican, the GOP can neither dismiss the crankery nor move past it. The fringe defines what’s left of the Republican centre.

Opinion surveys

In October 2008, the Orange County Register's OC Political Pulse poll found that a third of responding Republicans believed that Obama had been born outside the United States. As a result of the widespread publicity given to the citizenship controversy, 60% of respondents in an Ohio State University survey carried out in November 2008 had heard of the issue. However, only 10% believed the claims that Obama was not a citizen.

An opinion poll carried out for Daily Kos by Research 2000 in July 2009 found that 77% of Americans believed that Obama was born in the U.S., while 11% didn't, and 12% were unsure. However, Republicans and Southerners were far more likely than other political or demographic groups to doubt that Obama was born in the United States. 58% of Republicans either believed that Obama was not born in the U.S. (28%) or were not sure (30%), with 42% believing that he was. An overwhelming majority of Democrats (93%) and independents (83%) believed that he was born in the U.S. Support for the belief that Obama was born outside the U.S. was strongest in the South, where only 47% of those polled believed he was born in the U.S., compared with an average of 90% of residents of the Northeast, Midwest and West. A marked racial disparity in the South was also apparent. The Politico's congressional reporter, Glenn Thrush, commented that the Research 2000 poll "explains why Republicans, including Roy Blunt, are playing footsie with the Birther fringe". Writing on National Journal's Pollster.com blog, Brendan Nyhan observed that the poll "suggests that the encouragement of the birth certificate myth by conservative pundits and Republican politicians has begun to activate the GOP base on this issue".

A Public Policy Polling survey carried out in August 2009 found that only 32% of Republicans in Virginia thought that Obama was born in the U.S., 41% thought he was foreign-born and the remaining 27% were unsure. In Utah, an August 2009 poll carried out for the Deseret News and KSL-TV found that 67% of Utahns accepted the evidence that Obama was born in the U.S. The poll found that those who do not believe that Obama was born in the United States, or do not know, are predominantly middle-aged, lower-income Republican-leaning individuals without a college education.

A Pew Research Center poll found that 80% of Americans had heard about the Obama citizenship claims by August 2009. The poll found a significant partisan divide in views of the news coverage, with 58% of Democrats saying that the allegations had received too much attention from the media. Republicans were more inclined to say that the allegations had received too little attention, with 39% expressing this view against only 26% saying that the controversy had received too much attention.

In a Harris Poll online survey of 2,320 adults conducted in March 2010, 25% of the respondents said they believed that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president". In a July 2010 CNN poll of adult Americans, 16% said had doubts that Obama was born in the United States, and a further 11% were certain that he was not.

Dilemma for Republicans

Because a large percentage of Republicans and/or their Tea Party supporters believe Obama is not eligible to hold public office (see Opinion surveys section), Republicans sometimes found themselves caught in a dilemma between losing support or damaging their credibility. They had "to walk the fine line of humoring conspiracy-minded supporters without explicitly questioning Obama's legitimacy..." Other Republicans, including former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, however, have plainly rejected these claims.

Commentary and criticism

In an August 23, 2008, article about Berg's lawsuit, WND claimed it had investigated Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate using forgery experts and "found the document to be authentic", contradicting claims made in other WND articles and in Corsi's book. However, on December 20, after numerous liberal websites, politicians and media personalities touted WND's findings, Joseph Farah claimed in a WND column that the forgery experts had not actually concluded it was authentic and that "None of them could report conclusively that the electronic image was authentic or that it was a forgery." After MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named Farah the "Worst Person in the World" on his show Countdown for his apparent reversal, Farah defended himself, claiming "the veracity of that image was never the major issue of contention. Rather, the major issue is where is the rest of the birth certificate – the part that explains where the baby was born, who the delivery doctor was, etc. ...I can tell you WND has done its part to find out the truth."

Critics have dubbed proponents of claims about Obama's eligibility "birthers", drawing a parallel with 9/11 conspiracy theorists or "truthers". MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow defines a "birther" as:

A specific new breed of American conspiracy theorists who believe that the real problem with Barack Obama being president is that he can't possibly have been born in the United States. He's not eligible to be president. The birth certificate is a fake. He's a foreigner. Once this has been exposed, I guess, he will be run out of the White House and exposed for the alien, communist, Muslim, gay, drug dealer, al-Qaeda member that he is ...

Leslie Savan of The Nation commented:

The Birthers go beyond simple conspiracy theories--they're cast members of the ongoing American denying-reality show, not unlike the folks who deny the moonlanding or the Holocaust ..., and very much like the Creationists who insist that the Earth is but 6,000 years old, the Teabaggers who refuse to believe they must pay taxes, the 9/11 Truthers who say the government attacked the Twin Towers, and, as we might call them, the Inhofers who believe global warming is a hoax.

A number of conservative commentators have strongly criticized the birth-certificate theorists and their effect on the wider conservative movement. Columnist Michelle Malkin has written that "birth certificate hunters have lurched into rabid Truther territory" and that "they accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being part and parcel of the grand plan to install Emperor Obama and usurp the rule of law." At the same time, Malkin says that there "may be a seed of a legitimate constitutional issue to explore here" regarding the broader issue of how the citizenship requirement is enforced for presidential candidates. Michael Medved, a prominent conservative talk-show host, has attacked birth-certificate theorists as "crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitative, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters" who are "the worst enemy of the conservative movement" and "make us look sick, troubled and not suitable for civilized company." Conservative columnist Ann Coulter has referred to the birthers as "just a few cranks." Paleoconservative pundit Steve Sailer has dismissed the theory as "a very silly idea", saying,

Of course he was born in Hawaii. Have you ever looked at where Hawaii is on a globe?... The idea that his heavily pregnant mother... would get on an early 707 and fly at great expense to some foreign country is ridiculous — especially the popular theory that he was born in Kenya. Do you know how many different flights she would have had to take to get to Kenya in 1961?

An editorial in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin dismissed some of the claims about Obama's eligibility as proposing "a vast conspiracy involving Obama's parents, state officials, the news media, the Secret Service, think-tanks and a host of yet-to-be-uncovered others who have connived since Obama's birth to build a false record so that he could eventually seek the presidency 47 years later." The St. Petersburg Times' fact-checking website, PolitiFact.com, comments:

It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world's biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything's possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what's reasonable has to take over. There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact's conclusion that the candidate's name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn't authentic. And that's true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.

Some commentators have raised questions about Obama's birth certificate even while condemning the tactics of those people campaigning to have him declared ineligible. For example, social critic Camille Paglia argued in the magazine Salon:

I had thought for many months that the flap over Obama's birth certificate was a tempest in a teapot. But simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks to their own blathering, fanatical overkill, of course, the right-wing challenges to the birth certificate never gained traction. But Obama could have ended the entire matter months ago by publicly requesting Hawaii to issue a fresh, long-form, stamped certificate and inviting a few high-profile reporters in to examine the document and photograph it. (The campaign did make the "short-form" certificate available to Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.)

Paglia's argument that Obama should release a copy of the full, original 1961 certificate is perhaps the most common argument of people questioning Obama's eligibility; even if Obama were to oblige, the issue might not go away, in view of the fact that it was the Obama campaign's release of the short-form that "stoked the fever of conspiracy mongers", as Salon's Alex Koppelman put it. Factcheck.org notes, "The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department."

According to Salon, "almost all of the people who've been most prominent in pushing this story have a history of conspiracist thought." In response to the notion that Obama's grandparents might have planted a birth announcement in newspapers just so their grandson could some day be president, FactCheck suggested that "those who choose to go down that path should first equip themselves with a high-quality tinfoil hat." Brooks Jackson, the director of FactCheck, comments that "it all reflects a surge of paranoid distress among people who don't like Barack Obama" and who want the election results to go away. Chip Berlet, a journalist who has studied the spread of conspiracy theories, notes "For some people, when their side loses an election, the only explanation that makes sense to them – that they can cope with – is that sinister, bad, evil people arranged some kind of fraud." American political writer Dana Milbank, writing for the Washington Post, describes the Obama citizenship theories of Bob Schulz (chairman of the We the People Foundation, which in 2008 publicly challenged Obama's citizenship) as "hysteria". Colorado elector Camilla Auger, responding to lobbying of members of the state's electoral college, commented: "I was concerned that there are that many nutty people in the country making depressing, absurd allegations. There are so many problems in the country right now, we need to work together."

Some commentators have asserted that racism is a factor motivating the promotion of Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. J. Richard Cohen, the President of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors hate groups and extremism, wrote an e-mail to supporters in July 2009 declaring: "This conspiracy theory was concocted by an anti-Semite and circulated by racist extremists who cannot accept the fact that a black man has been elected president."

Neil Abercrombie

After taking office as Governor of Hawaii in December 2010, Neil Abercrombie announced plans to use the office to discredit the conspiracy theories surrounding Obama's birth. Abercombie has personal reasons for addressing the issue, since he had been Barack Obama, Sr.'s teaching assistant at the University of Hawaii, and knew both Obama Sr. and his wife, Ann Dunham, at the time of Obama Jr.'s birth. As the leader of the state, he also feels obligated to fight the conspiracy theories, which imply that people born in Hawaii are less American than those born in the contiguous United States. He said on January 18, 2011, that the birth certificate issue is "not all just political agenda ... has a political implication for 2012 that we simply cannot have", adding that there is a record of the birth in the State Archives which he wants to use.

Before being elected governor, Abercombie was a member of the United States House of Representatives, where he sponsored a bill recognizing the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood. The bill included language declaring Hawaii to be the birthplace of President Obama.

In late January 2011, Abercrombie abandoned his efforts to release additional birth records because privacy laws barred him from doing so without Obama's consent.

Legislation and litigation

The controversy over Obama's citizenship and eligibility for the presidency has prompted a number of Republican state and federal legislators to propose legislation aimed at requiring future presidential candidates to release copies of their birth certificates. Some legislators also lent their support to birth certificate-related litigation against Obama, joining as co-plaintiffs. Numerous other individuals and groups have filed state or federal lawsuits seeking to have Obama disqualified from standing or being confirmed for the Presidency, or to compel him to release additional documentation relating to his citizenship. By mid-December 2008, at least 17 lawsuits had been filed challenging Obama's eligibility in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey, Texas and Washington. No such suit had resulted in the grant of any relief to the plaintiffs by any court.

Official response

A common claim among those arguing that President Obama was not born in Hawaii is that all doubt would be settled if Obama released his "long form" birth certificate. However, commentators noted that doing so would be disadvantageous to Obama. First, it would encourage speculation as to why it took so long to release the document. Second, caving in to his political adversaries' demands would embolden them by giving them a victory. Finally, it would open the door to demands for other personal records unrelated to his birth certificate. Despite these concerns, both Obama and his press secretary did eventually respond to reporters' questions about the issue.

Press secretary's response

At the end of the May 27, 2009, press briefing, WorldNetDaily reporter Lester Kinsolving asked about Obama's birth certificate. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs replied, "It's on the Internet", to which Kinsolving responded "No, no, no – the long form listing his hospital and physician." Gibbs responded as follows:

Lester, this question in many ways continues to astound me. The state of Hawaii provided a copy with the seal of the President's birth. I know there are apparently at least 400,000 people (laughter) that continue to doubt the existence of and the certification by the state of Hawaii of the President's birth there, but it's on the Internet because we put it on the Internet for each of those 400,000 to download.

At a July 27, 2009, press briefing, radio talk show host Bill Press asked Gibbs if there was anything he could say to make the issue go away. Gibbs answered, "No. I mean, the God's honest truth is no," because "nothing will assuage" those who continue to pursue what he called "made-up, fictional nonsense" despite the evidence that Obama had already provided.

On August 6, 2009, Gibbs commented, "You couldn't sell this script in Hollywood," and summarized the contentions that he considered "totally crazy":

A pregnant woman leaves her home to go overseas to have a child — who there’s not a passport for — so is in cahoots with someone…to smuggle that child, that previously doesn’t exist on a government roll somewhere back into the country and has the amazing foresight to place birth announcements in the Hawaii newspapers? All while this is transpiring in cahoots with those in the border, all so some kid named Barack Obama could run for President 46 and a half years later.

Barack Obama's response

Barack Obama directly addressed the issue on August 29, 2010, in an interview with Brian Williams. Williams asked Obama about the fact that a fifth of the American people do not believe that he is either American born or a Christian. Obama responded that "there is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly". He then added "I can't spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead."

At the 2010 National Prayer Breakfast, Obama commented, "Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith. Or for that matter my citizenship."

In an April 2011 interview with George Stephanopoulos, Obama said, "I think that over the last two and a half years there's been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically expedient in the short-term for Republicans, but creates, I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in a general election where most people feel pretty confident the President was born where he says he was, in Hawaii. He doesn't have horns. We may disagree with him on some issues and we may wish that you know, the unemployment rate was coming down faster and we want him to know his plan on gas prices. But we're not really worrying about conspiracy theories or ... birth certificates. And so ... I think it presents a problem for them."

In jest

On a few occasions, Obama has joked about the conspiracy theories surrounding his birth certificate and citizenship.

At the 2010 White House Correspondents' Dinner, Obama said there are few things in life harder to find and more important to keep than love, and then added, "Well, love and a birth certificate." At the 2011 Gridiron Dinner, Obama referred to Bruce Springsteen's song, "Born in the U.S.A.", and commented, "Some things just bear repeating." On March 17, 2011 (Saint Patrick's Day), Obama said, "Now, speaking of ancestry, there has been some controversy about my own background. Two years into my presidency, some are still bent on peddling rumors about my origins. So today, I want to put all those rumors to rest. It is true my great-great-great-grandfather really was from Ireland. It’s true. Moneygall, to be precise. I can’t believe I have to keep pointing this out."

See also

• Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories
• Birthright citizenship in the United States of America
• Natural Born Citizen Clause#Presidential candidates whose eligibility was questioned

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External links

Barack Obama's vital records FAQ, Hawaii State Department of Health

Analysis

• The Truth About Obama's Birth Certificate by FactCheck.org
• False Rumor about Obama's Birth Certificate from Snopes.com
• Obama's Birth Certificate: Final Chapter from PolitiFact
• Email Hoax: Occidental College Transcripts Reveal Foreign Citizenship from Urban Legends
• Daniel Freedman, "Romney to Trump: Obama Doesn’t Need a Birth Certificate," Forbes, April 12, 2011

Commentary

• Culture of Conspiracy: The Birthers by The Politico
• Anti-Obama Lunatics Living in Denial by The Daily Nation
• Archive of Pro-Conspiracy Reports from WorldNetDaily
• 11 Most Paranoid Obama Conspiracy Theories - slideshow by The Huffington Post
• The former British police officer who wants to bring down Barack Obama by The Guardian
• American Grotesque by John Jeremiah Sullivan, GQ Magazine Cover Story, January 2010
• Birthers collected commentary at Salon.com

Multimedia

• The Daily Show: "The Born Identity" July 22, 2009
• Gordon Liddy on MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews July 23, 2009
• The Colbert Report: "Womb Raiders" Part 1 and *Part 2 with Orly Taitz July 28, 2009
• The Stupid Virus by Current TV's SuperNews!, November 14, 2009
• History of the Birther Movement - slideshow by Life magazine

• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from April 2011
• Conspiracy theories
• Barack Obama