"President Barack Obama's long-form birth
certificate released by the White House on April 27, 2011, is suspected to be a
computer-generated forgery, not a scan of an original 1961 paper document as
represented by the White House when the long-form birth certificate was made
public," Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said at a press conference
today in Phoenix.
This is the major preliminary finding of a six-month
ongoing Sheriff's Cold Case Posse law enforcement investigation into the
authenticity of Obama's birth certificate and his eligibility to be president.
Having developed probable cause to believe the long-form birth
certificate was most likely a computer-generated forgery, investigators began
examining other evidence of President Obama's life history.
Investigators additionally have developed credible evidence suggesting:
• President Obama's Selective Service card was most likely a forgery,
revealed by an examination of the postal date stamp on the document;
•
Records of Immigration and Naturalization Service cards filled out by airplane
passengers arriving on international flights originating outside the United
States in the month of August 1961, examined at the National Archives in
Washington, D.C., are missing records for the week of President Obama's birth,
including the dates Aug. 1, 1961 through Aug. 7, 1961.
Beginning in
October 2011, the Sheriff's Cold Case Posse, consisting of former law
enforcement officers and lawyers with law enforcement experience, examined
dozens of witnesses and hundreds of documents, as well as taking numerous sworn
statements from witnesses around the world.
In August 2011, 250 members
of the Surprise,
Arizona, Tea Party, residents
of
Maricopa
County, presented a signed
petition asking Sheriff Arpaio to undertake the investigation.
The Tea
Party members petitioned under the premise that if a forged birth certificate
was utilized to obtain a position for Barack Obama on the 2012
Arizona presidential ballot, their rights as
Maricopa County voters could be compromised.
The Cold Case investigators further determined that the Hawaii
Department of Health has engaged in what Sheriff's investigators believe is a
systematic effort to hide from public inspection whatever original 1961 birth
records the Hawaii Department of Health may have in their possession.
"Officers of the Hawaii Department of Health and various elected
Hawaiian public officials may have intentionally obscured 1961 birth records and
procedures, to avoid having to release to public inspection and to the
examination of court-authorized forensic examiners any original Obama 1961 birth
records the Hawaii Department of Health may or may not have," said Mike Zullo,
the lead investigator in Sheriff Arpaio's Cold Case Posse.
The Cold Case
investigators have not yet determined who, when, or precisely how the long-form
computer-generated birth certificate released on April 27 may have been forged,
but investigators say the evidence contained in the computer-generated PDF file
released by the White House as well as important deficiencies in the Hawaii
process of certifying the long-form birth certificate establish probable cause
that a forgery has been committed.
The Cold Case Posse investigators
advised Sheriff Arpaio that the forgers most likely committed two crimes: first,
in fraudulently creating a forgery that the White House characterized, knowingly
or unknowingly, as an officially produced governmental birth record; and second,
in fraudulently presenting to the residents of Maricopa County and to the
American public at large a forgery the White House represented as "proof
positive" of President Obama's authentic 1961 Hawaii long-form birth
certificate.
"A continuing investigation is needed to identify the
identity of the person or persons involved in creating the alleged birth
certificate forgery, and to determine who, if anyone, in the White House or the
state of
Hawaii may have authorized the forgery,"
Arpaio said.
Among the evidence released at the press conference were
five videos the Cold Case Posse produced to demonstrate why the Obama long-form
birth certificate is suspected to be a computer-generated forgery.
The
videos consisted of step-by-step computer demonstrations using a control
document.
The videos were designed to display the testing used by the
investigators to examine various claims made by supporters of the April 27
document.
The videos illustrate point-by-point the investigators'
conclusion that the features and anomalies observed on the Obama long-form birth
certificate were inconsistent with features produced when a paper document is
scanned, even if the scan of the paper document had been enhanced by Optical
Character Recognition (OCR) and optimized.
Additionally, the videos
demonstrated that the Hawaii Department of Health Registrar's name stamp and the
Registrar's date stamp were computer-generated images imported into an
electronic document, as opposed to actual rubber stamp imprints inked by hand or
machine onto a paper document.
"That we were able to cast reasonable
suspicions on the authenticity of the Registrar stamps was especially
disturbing, since these stamp imprints are designed to provide government
authentication to the document itself," Zullo said, stressing that if the
Registrar stamps are forgeries, the document itself is likely a forgery.
The investigators also chronicled a series of inconsistent and
misleading representations that various Hawaii government officials have made
over the past five years regarding what, if any, original birth records are held
by the Hawaii Department of Health.
"As I said at the beginning of the
investigation," Arpaio said, "the president can put all this to rest quite
easily. All he has to do is demand the Hawaii Department of Health release to
the American public and to a panel of certified court-authorized forensic
examiners all original 1961 paper, microfilm, and computer birth records the
Hawaii Department of Health has in its possession."
Arpaio further
stressed the Hawaii Department of Health needs to provide, as part of the full
disclosure, evidence regarding the chain of custody of all Obama birth records,
including paper, microfilm, and electronic records, in order to eliminate the
possibility that a forger or forgers may have tampered with the birth records.
Arpaio went on to say the President should also authorize Kapiolani
Hospital, the birth hospital listed on the Obama long-form birth certificate, to
release any and all hospital patient records for Stanley Ann Dunham Obama, his
mother, and for the newly born Barack Obama, in order to provide additional
corroboration for the original 1961 birth records held in the Hawaii Department
of Health vault.
"Absent the authentic Hawaii Department of Health 1961
birth records for Barack Obama, there is no other credible proof supporting the
idea or belief that President Barack Obama was born in
Hawaii, as he and the
White House have consistently asserted," Zullo said.
"In fact, absent
the authentication of Hawaii Department of Health 1961 birth records for Barack
Obama, there is no other proof he was born anywhere within the United States."
Arpaio concluded the press conference by suggesting a congressional
investigation might be warranted and asked that any other law enforcement agency
with information referencing this investigation be forwarded to his office.
