Arpaio: Investigation proves Obama birth certificate a fake
By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services | Posted: Thursday, March 1, 2012 3:58 pm
PHOENIX — The birth certificate which Barack Obama says proves he is a U.S. citizen is a fraud, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio charged Thursday.
The sheriff said a forensic examination of the electronic document posted last year by the White House proves that it was not simply scanned into a file but actually put together in several pieces. And Mike Zullo, head of the sheriff’s Cold Case Posse who headed the investigation, said the inconsistencies in the document cannot be explained away by claims that it was optimized or had been scanned with optical character recognition software.
Zullo also said a separate examination proves Obama’s selective service also is a fake.
But the sheriff, while saying the evidence proves that a crime was committed, was careful not to implicate the president.
“I’m not accusing anyone of anything until we find out who may have committed these alleged crimes over this birth certificate and the selective service card,” Arpaio said.
“Someone did it — if it’s false,” he continued, adding “we made a pretty good case here.”
And Arpaio brushed aside a question of why he was able to find such evidence when no one else in the country has. The sheriff said he probably was the only one who bothered to investigate in detail.
“Show me how far they went,” Arpaio said of other. “And show me any law enforcement agency that looked into it.”
Zullo also said the fact the Honolulu newspaper had a birth announcement at the time proves nothing, saying the newspaper accepted such messages without requiring proof the person actually had been born in the state.
And asked how Obama managed to get a passport without a valid birth certificate, all Zullo could say is, “that’s a great question.”
And Zullo insisted that Arpaio has jurisdiction.
He said the White House, under pressure, never produced an actual document for people to examine.
“They produced an electronic file,” Zullo said.
“The fact that that document was put up on the web site of the White House for distribution to anyone in the country, the world, who wanted to see it, was a representation made to the people of Maricopa County, including a press conference where the president himself attests, ‘this is my document, proof positive,’” Zullo said.
“You fraud one person in Maricopa County with that, you fraud every person in Maricopa County.”
Zullo stressed, though, “we are not accusing Mr. Obama of creating this document.” he said.
Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix, called the finding “extremely troubling.” Seel said he hopes the sheriff’s findings breathe new life into legislation he and Sen. Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley, have been pushing to require some evidence that all candidates whould have to prove they are “natural born citizens” of the United States before their names are placed on the ballot.
He said even if questions of Obama’s birth certificate are never resolved, he believes the inquiry shows the need for better vetting of candidates “to make sure in the future we maintain the integrity of our ballot.” More to the point, Seel wants legislation to empower the government to enforce the constitutional requirements for presidency.
The White House, which thought the issue had been put to sleep with the posting of the birth certificate, had no comment.
Arpaio said he is not saying the president is serving illegally — exactly. But he said that, given the findings about his birth certificate and selective service registration, he wants the president to produce some conclusive evidence of his citizenship.
Zullo said that could include actual microfilm of documents, with his office able to test the film to verify its age and authenticity. Hospital records also would be acceptable.
“We do not have a single document, absent that birth certificate which we do not believe was ever an authenticated document, that proves Mr. Obama’s birth in Hawaii or anywhere else in the United States for that matter,” said Zullo.
“At this juncture, we have advised Sheriff Arpaio we believe there should be a full-blown criminal investigation because a fraud has been committed in Maricopa County and the State of Arizona,” he said. “The document is fake. The representations, therefore, are fake.”
