Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories

During Barack Obama's campaign for president in 2008 and in the years following his election, many conspiracy theories have been circulated, falsely asserting that he is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and consequently, under Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, that he is ineligible to be President of the United States. Theories allege that Obama's published birth certificate is a forgery—that his actual birthplace is not Hawaii but Kenya. Other theories allege that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia in childhood, thereby losing his U.S. citizenship. Still others claim that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen because he was born a dual citizen (British and American). A number of political commentators have characterized these various claims as a racist reaction to Obama's status as the first African American President of the United States. Such claims have been promoted by fringe theorists ("birthers"), some of whom have sought court rulings either declaring Obama ineligible to take office, or granting access to various documents which they claim exist, and which they claim would evidence such ineligibility; none of these efforts have been successful. Some political opponents, especially in the Republican Party, have expressed skepticism about Obama's citizenship or been unwilling to acknowledge it; some have proposed legislation which would require presidential candidates to provide proof of eligibility. Expressed belief in such theories has persisted despite Obama's pre-election release of his official Hawaiian birth certificate in 2008; confirmation, based on the original documents, by the Hawaii Department of Health; the April 2011 release of a certified copy of Obama's original Certificate of Live Birth (or long-form birth certificate); and contemporaneous birth announcements published in Hawaii newspapers. Polls conducted in 2010 suggested that at least one quarter of adult Americans said that they doubted Obama's U.S. birth, while a May 2011 Gallup poll found that 13% of American adults (23% of Republicans) continued to express such doubts. Background- Early life of Obama: People who express doubts about Obama's eligibility or reject details about his early life are often informally called "birthers", a term that parallels the nickname "truthers" for adherents of 9/11 conspiracy theories. These conspiracy theorists reject at least some of the following facts 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, and Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province (in what was then the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya), who was attending the University of Hawaii. Birth notices for Barack Obama were published in the Honolulu Advertiser on August 13 and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on August 14, 1961. Obama's father's immigration file also clearly states Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. One of his high school teachers, who was acquainted with his mother at the time, remembered hearing about the day of his birth. Obama's parents were divorced in 1964. He attended kindergarten in 1966–1967 at Noelani Elementary School in Honolulu. In 1967, his mother married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, who was also attending the University of Hawaii, and the family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama attended the Catholic St. Francis of Assisi School before transferring to State Elementary School Menteng 01, an elite Indonesian public school in Menteng. As a child in Indonesia, Obama was called "Barry", sometimes Barry Soetoro, reflecting his step-father's surname, and sometimes Barry Obama, using his father's surname. When he was ten years old, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, and has resided continuously in the United States since 1971. Origins of the claims: During the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential primaries, anonymous e-mails from supporters of Hillary Clinton surfaced that questioned Obama's citizenship in an attempt to revive Clinton's faltering primary election campaign. These and numerous other chain e-mails during the subsequent presidential election 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 on June 9, 2008, 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. In October 2009, anonymous e-mails circulated claiming that the Associated Press (AP) had reported Obama was "Kenyan-Born". The claims were based on an AP story that had appeared five years earlier in a Kenyan publication, The Standard. The rumor-checking website Snopes.com found that the headline and lead-in sentence describing Obama as born in Kenya and misspelling his first name had been added by the Kenyan newspaper, and did not appear in the story issued by the AP or in any other contemporary newspaper that picked up the AP story. In 2012, Breitbart.com published a copy of a promotional booklet that Obama's literary agency, Acton & Dystel, printed in 1991 (and later posted to their website, in a biography in place until April 2007) which misidentified Obama's birthplace and states that Obama was "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii." When this was posted by Breitbart, the booklet's editor said that this incorrect information had been her mistake, not based on anything provided to her agency by Obama. Release of the birth certificates- Short form, 2008: On June 12, 2008, Obama's campaign responded to the rumors by posting an image of Obama's birth certificate on the "Fight The Smears" website. The image is a scan of a laser-printed document obtained from and certified by the Hawaii Department of Health on June 6, 2007. It is a "Certification of Live Birth", sometimes referred to as a short form birth certificate, and contains less information than the longer "Certificate of Live Birth", which Hawaii no longer issues. Asked about this, Hawaiian Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo explained that Hawaii stopped issuing the longer "Certificate" in 2001 when their birth records were "put into electronic files for consistent reporting", and therefore Hawaii "does not have a short-form or long-form certificate".[40] A "record of live birth", partially handwritten and partially typed, was created and submitted in 1961 when Obama was born, and is "located in a bound volume in a file cabinet on the first floor of the state Department of Health". The document was used to create the state's electronic records, and has been examined by state officials multiple times since the controversy began. 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. Referring to this release, National Review columnist Jim Geraghty, wrote on June 12, 2008: ...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 original birth certificate would have any different data. Frequent arguments of those questioning Obama's eligibility related to the fact that he did not originally release a copy of his "original" or "long form" birth certificate, but rather a "short form" version that did not include all of the information given on 1961 Hawaii-issued birth certificates. It was claimed that the use of the term "certification of live birth" on the first document means it is not equivalent to a "birth certificate". These arguments have been debunked numerous times by media investigations, every judicial forum that has addressed the matter, and Hawaiian government officials—among whom a consensus has been reached that the document released by the Obama campaign is indeed his official birth certificate. The director of the state Department of Human Health confirmed that the state "has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures". The short form is "prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding". Rejection by conspiracy theorists: The release of the certificate in 2008 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 FactCheck.org, which viewed the Obama campaign's hard copy of the Certification of Live Birth and reported that: 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. Hawaii Department of Health 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 the website TVNewser, CNN's researchers stated in 2009 that the original birth certificate no longer existed, as Hawaii discarded all paper birth records in 2001, and the certification of live birth was the official copy. Contradicting this report, 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 Hawaii State Department of Health, have 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. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008, over eight months ago. Joshua Wisch, a spokesman for the Hawaii Attorney General's office, stated in 2011 that the original "long form" birth certificate — described by Hawaiian officials as a "record of live birth" kept in the archives of the Hawaii Department of Health is "... a Department of Health record and it can't be released to anybody", including President Obama. Wisch added that state law does not authorize photocopying such records. Long form, 2011: On April 22, 2011, Obama asked Loretta Fuddy, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, for certified copies of his original Certificate of Live Birth ("long-form birth certificate"). Accompanying the letter was a written request from Judith Corley, Obama's personal counsel, requesting a waiver of the department's policy of issuing only computer-generated certificates. Corley stated that granting the waiver would relieve the department of the burden of repeated inquiries into the President's birth records. On April 25, 2011, Fuddy approved the request and witnessed the copying process as the health department's registrar issued the certified copies. The same day, Corley personally visited the department headquarters in Honolulu to pay the required fee on Obama's behalf, and received the two requested certified copies of the original birth certificate, an accompanying letter from Fuddy attesting to the authenticity of same, and a receipt for the processing fee. Fuddy said that she had granted the exception to its normal policy of issuing only computer-generated copies by virtue of Obama's status, in an effort to avoid ongoing requests for the birth certificate. On April 27, White House staffers gave reporters a copy of the certificate, and posted a PDF image of the certificate on the White House website. The certificate reconfirmed the information on the official short-form certificate released in 2008, and provided additional details such as the name of the hospital at which Obama was born. Rejection by conspiracy theorists: A claim put forth by the Drudge Report that the newly released document was a forgery made with image editing software quickly spread on the Internet. Nathan Goulding, chief technology officer of the National Review magazine, dismissed the matter of "layered components" found in the White House PDF by suggesting "that whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii forgot to turn off the OCR setting on the scanner." Nathan added "I’ve confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home." "Showing papers": Goldie Taylor, a commentator for the African American news site The Grio, characterized the demand that Obama provide his birth certificate as an equivalent of making him "show his papers", as blacks were once required to do under Jim Crow laws. Sociologist Matthew W. Hughey has cited many of the claims as evidence of racial "othering" of Obama against the conflation of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) subject as the ideal and authentic American citizen. False claims Born in Kenya: Some opponents of Obama's presidential eligibility claim that he was born in Kenya and was therefore not born a United States citizen. Whether Obama having been born outside the U.S. would have invalidated his U.S. citizenship at birth is debated. Political commentator Andrew Malcolm, of the Los Angeles Times, wrote that Obama would still be eligible for the presidency, regardless of where he was born, because his mother was an American citizen, saying that Obama's mother "could have been on Mars when wee Barry emerged and he'd still be American." A contrary view is promoted by UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh, who has said that 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. 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 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 Chicago Tribune. 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. In a June 2012 interview at her Kenyan home, Sarah Obama was asked: "Some people want to believe that the president was born in Kenya. Have these people ever bothered you or asked for his birth certificate?" Her response was: "But Barack Obama wasn’t born in Kenya." Fake 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, in which the plaintiffs asked for a judicial order that Obama provide documentation that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States. Legal papers 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 was 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 responsibility for the forgery and posting four photos substantiating his claim. Examples of actual 1961 Kenyan birth certificates have also been published, which look substantially different from the document Taitz submitted to the court. Not born in Hawaii: Despite the existence of Obama's Hawaii certification of live birth, Terry Lakin's attorney, among others, have 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 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. Lost 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 legal at that time. An April Fools Day hoax email circulated on the Internet starting in 2009. It falsely claimed that Obama applied to Occidental College under the name "Barry Soetoro" claiming to be "a foreign student from Indonesia" in order to obtain a Fulbright scholarship (which does not exist for undergraduate students from Indonesia). Disputes over "natural-born citizen" requirements: 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 law professor Gabriel J. Chin, "there is agreement that 'natural born citizens' include those made citizens by birth under the 14th Amendment." Despite this agreement, two similar but distinct theories nonetheless contend Obama, although born in Hawaii, does not qualify as a "natural-born citizen". Parental citizenship: Some campaigners, such as the Tennessee-based Liberty Legal Foundation, 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. The Liberty Legal Foundation has cited a passage in the decision on an 1875 voting rights case which came before the U.S. Supreme Court—Minor v. Happersett—in which the court stated there was no doubt that "all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens" were natural-born citizens. Dual citizenship: Others, including New Jersey attorney Leo Donofrio, have claimed 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 according to FactCheck.org, which noted that Obama was indeed born 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, but 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 therefore automatically lost his Kenyan citizenship on his 23rd birthday in 1984, by failing to formally renounce any non-Kenyan citizenship and swear an oath of allegiance to Kenya. Although the paper apologized for the error and published a correction, the article continued to provide fuel for online rumors about Obama's eligibility for the presidency. 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. In December 2008, Alex Koppelman, a senior writer for Salon, characterized nearly all of the prominent people promoting the story Obama was not eligible to be president, including Jerome Corsi, Philip Berg, Andy Martin and Robert Schultz as having a "history of conspiracist thought". The Constitution Party, a paleoconservative third party, also campaigned 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, during an episode of his nationally syndicated radio show Savage Nation, said that "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 Huffington Post reported that, in April 2011 during his stage show, Charlie Sheen said, "For starters, I was fucking born here, how about that? And I got proof! Nothing photoshopped about my birth certificate." 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 short form 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 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." 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 Wenneker 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. Political candidates and elected officials- Richard Shelby: In February 2009, the Cullman Times, an Alabama newspaper, reported that at a town hall meeting there, U.S. Senator from Alabama Richard Shelby was asked if there was any truth to the rumors that Obama was not a natural-born citizen. According to the Times report, Shelby said, “Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president.” 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: In November 2009, then-Representative Nathan 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, who won the 2010 gubernatorial election in Georgia, 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: During a December 3, 2009 interview on Rusty Humphries' radio talk show, Humphries asked Sarah 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, 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. This analogy was criticized by Mark Milian of the Los Angeles Times, who commented that "It's not like Barack Obama hosted a radio show and called her a baby faker." 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." Tracey Mann: Tracey Mann, a candidate running for Congress from Kansas in 2010, 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 Mann, saying 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 his 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 believe the president was born in this country". Gibbs 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 self-crowned 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, falsely claimed that Obama had been raised in Kenya and that "Obama probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather." Huckabee, speaking on The O'Reilly Factor, said that he misspoke and intended to say Indonesia, characterizing his own comment as a "verbal gaffe". 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." Joe Arpaio: Volunteer investigators working under the direction of Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio have asserted that Obama's birth certificate is a computer-generated forgery. Rejecting this claim, an assistant to Hawaii's attorney general stated in July 2012 that "President Obama was born in Honolulu, and his birth certificate is valid.... Regarding the latest allegations from a sheriff in Arizona, they are untrue, misinformed and misconstrue Hawaii law." Arizona state officials, including Governor Jan Brewer and Secretary of State Ken Bennett, have also dismissed Arpaio's objections and accepted the validity of Obama's birth certificate. Alex Pareene, a staff writer for Salon, wrote regarding a May 2012 trip to Hawaii by Arpaio's people that "I think we have long since passed the point at which I'd find this story believable in a fictional setting". Mike Coffman: On May 12, 2012, Mike Coffman, a congressman running for re-election in the Sixth Congressional District of Colorado, addressed a Republican fund-raising event in Elbert County. Coffman stated that he did not know where President Barack Obama was born. Coffman went on to say of Obama that "in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American." Coffman issued an apology on May 16, saying that he had misspoken and that he had confidence in President Obama's citizenship and legitimacy as president. In a May 23 Denver Post op-ed piece, Coffman described his comment as "inappropriate and boneheaded." Public figures- 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" (as Trump considers the term "birther" to be "derogatory"). Trump added, "Growing up no one knew him", a claim ranked Pants-on-Fire by Politifact. 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. After Trump began making his views public, he was contacted by Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, who was reportedly on the phone with Trump every day for a week, providing Trump with a "birther primer", answers to questions, and advice. After Obama released his long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, Trump said "I am really honored and I am really proud, that I was able to do something that nobody else could do." On October 24, 2012, Trump offered to donate five million dollars to the charity of Obama's choice in return for the publication of his college and passport applications before October 31, 2012. Arizona electors: In December 2012, 3 out of the 11 electors from Arizona who cast their votes for Mitt Romney, raised doubts about Barack Obama's birthplace. One of those electors was the chair of the Republican Party of Arizona, Tom Morrissey. Morrissey later insisted that he is not a birther, but stated that "In his opinion, what he has seen from the president, produced as a birth certificate, does not convince him that it is a real document."