Obama eligibility: Arpaio posse in Hawaii

May 22, 2012 Terry A. Hurlbut 25 Comments

The Obama birth certificate. The birthers know something is wrong with it.

The Obama eligibility case might break wide-open. Concerned citizens in Arizona flood the offices of the Secretary of State and the Attorney General every day. Meanwhile, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County has sent the head of his Cold Case Posse, and a Maricopa County deputy detective, to Hawaii.

Obama eligibility: Arizona SOS

Last week, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett told leaders of the Surprise Tea Party that he would not put the name of Barack H. Obama on the ballot, for electing Presidential electors, unless Hawaiian officials satisfied him that Obama has a valid Hawaiian birth certificate. He carefully corrected the impression that Arizonans might have, namely that “Sheriff Joe” had found that the White House Obama birth certificate file is a forgery. The sheriff actually said, on March 1, 2012, that he had probable cause to suspect forgery by whoever created that White House file. In an Obama eligibility case in New Jersey, Lawyer Alexandra Hill said in open court that the White House file would not serve as evidence that Obama is eligible to the office of President. If that impressed Bennett, he did not tell the Tea Party activists.

But Bennett did tell them this:

If Hawaii can’t or won’t provide verification of the President’s birth certificate, I will not put his name on the ballot.

Bennett must have electrified the voters of Arizona by saying that. Or perhaps Sheriff Arpaio did. Joe Kovacs of WND quotes Bennett as counting 1,200 e-mails that concerned citizens have sent to him, and to the Arizona Attorney General, since the Arpaio press conference.

Bennett also appeared on a local radio program. He told host Mike Broomhead that no official in Hawaii has told him anything about the Obama birth certificate. Bennett doesn’t expect to get an original birth certificate. No State Department of Health gives that away. Instead, they give out certified copies. But Hawaiian officials will not even do that.

Bennett then told Broomhead what he had earlier told the Surprise Tea Party: if officials in Hawaii cannot or will not satisfy him, he will keep Obama’s name off the ballot. Either that, or he will ask every candidate for President to send in a valid certified copy of a birth certificate. Obama has never done this. In the New Jersey case (Purpura and Moran v. Obama), Elections Division Director Robert Giles told Purpura that no Obama eligibility evidence is on file, even from the Election of 2008.

The White House Obama birth certificate file seems to be full of errors. They include a printed misspelling (“TXE” for “THE”), a whimsical signature that the signer never used on any other official document, and a listing of the birthplace of Obama’s father as “Kenya, East Africa.” That name has never applied to the region in Africa whose citizens now call the Republic of Kenya.

Arpaio sends men to Hawaii

The Obama birth certificate: probable casualty in the Obama eligibility battle

Obama's long-form birth certificate, as released by the White House. A photocopy of an image in a book, with green safety-paper texture added after-the-fact. Suppose a teacher had assigned this as homework? Would that teacher still be teaching?

Last night, WND published this staff report saying that Arpaio had raised the stakes. He has sent Mike Zullo, the lead investigator in his Cold Case Posse, to Hawaii to track down any leads that he can. Arpaio also sent a regular deputy detective, so that Zullo would have someone official with him when he tries to talk to Hawaiian officials. So now, for the first time, a law-enforcement officer on the official payroll is playing a role in an Obama eligibility case. This detective’s role is supportive only. Arpaio made plain that his deputy’s job is to advise, or to talk to any officials who might refuse to talk to Mr. Zullo. The Cold Case Posse does its own fundraising and will reimburse the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for the costs of two round-trip air fares, plus hotel accommodations. (WND‘s Jerome Corsi is in Hawaii with the two men. He will not report until they come back from Hawaii. The sheriff seems to be worried about leaks.)

Arpaio acted after Bennett spoke on the radio about Hawaiian officials not cooperating. He said then that Hawaiian officials “must be hiding something.”

This outrages Obama apologists, who rail against Arpaio for “wasting taxpayers’ money.” Some of these are the same apologists who smugly said that no “official LEO” was investigating. Until now.

Other Obama eligibility news

The Internet is buzzing, of course, about an earlier Obama memoir that lists Obama’s birthplace as Kenya. His literary agent listed him as Kenyan-born in 1991. WND then took screenshots from five-year-old Internet caches that showed the same thing. Obama has touted his Kenyan, not American, birth as recently as 2007. This has provoked laughter in other media (like Townhall.com). But it also shows, at least, that Obama will change his own biography, as well as where he stands on issues, whenever it suits him. (He has also changed official biographies of past Presidents to tout his record. Pharaohs of Egypt often changed or even wiped out the biographies of their predecessors, and for much the same reason.)

Other Obama eligibility cases are still active. In a Florida case, plaintiff Mike Voeltz made plain that Secretaries of State have a “ministerial duty” to make sure that any name on any ballot belong to one qualified to hold the office he or she is running for. He cited the 2000 case if Bush v. Gore as binding precedent in Florida.