Obama won’t produce birth certificate because it would reveal TRUE identity of his father: Hawaii senator’s extraordinary claim
Last updated at 1:12 AM on 26th April 2011
A member of the Hawaii State Senate said today he believes Barack Obama is not releasing his long-form birth certificate because he may want to hide the identity or citizenship of his father.
In an extraordinary outburst, Republican Sam Slom said the 'real issue' behind the reluctance of the President, who says he was born in Hawaii, to release full details from his birth certificate was unlikely to be because he wanted to hide his place of birth.
'My particular point of view... is that [Obama] probably was born [in Hawaii] and that the real issue is not the birth certificate, but what's on the birth certificate,' Slom said in an interview on New York's WABC 770 AM radio station.
Hawaiian Senator Sam Slom, left, said Barack Obama is not releasing his long-form birth certificate because he may want to hide the identity or citizenship of his father
'It could have to do with what his name is on the birth certificate, who is actually listed as his father, the citizenship of the father,' Slom said.
In recent months, the birthplace of Obama has become a burning issue, with detractors of the President questioning whether he was in fact born in Kenya - even though Hawaii officials have certified he was born in the U.S. state.
Slom, who said he once lived in the same building as Obama in Hawaii's capital, said: 'My belief is that there is a birth certificate, he was born here, but that there is information that for reasons known only to him he doesn't want released.
Family ties: A young Barack Obama seen with his mother Stanley Ann Dunham in the 1960s, left, while an older Barack is seen right, with his father Barack Obama Sr
OBAMA HERITAGE TIMELINE
So-called 'birthers' claim there's no proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S and is therefore ineligible to be president.
Many of the sceptics suggest he was actually born in Kenya, his father Barack Obama Sr's home country, or even Indonesia where he spent part of his childhood with his mother and step father Lolo Soetoro.
The President maintains he was born in Hawaii but, although the Obama campaign issued a Certificate of Live Birth in the run-up to the election, he has since refused to produce a long-form version, leaving opposition, including a very vocal Donald Trump, questioning his eligibility to serve.
President Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham met his father at a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii in 1960.
Obama Sr, from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Kenya, had been the school's first African student. He was 23 and had come to Hawaii to get a better education.
Obama Sr and Dunham married on Maui in February 1961, when Dunham was already three months pregnant with Barack.
What Dunham didn't realise however was that her husband had left behind a pregnant wife Kezia and child in Kenya.
Baby Barack was born on August 4, 1961, supposedly in Hawaii. In fact 'Barack Hussain Obama II' is seen highlighted in a computer generated birth index from 1960-1964 in a Hawaii State government binder held at the State Department of Health in Honolulu.
His mother Dunham was just 18.
She lived in Seattle with her young son, while Obama Sr continued his studies in Hawaii, graduating in 1962.
He then won a scholarship to Harvard and in the autumn of 1962 moved to Boston, Massachusetts, leaving Dunham and the young Barack behind.
Dunham went back to Honolulu and continued with her studies, while her parents, WWII veteran Stanley Armour Dunham and Madelyn Lee Payne Dunhm helped to bring the young Barack up.
The relationship between her and Obama Sr soured and the couple divorced in January 1963 - Obama Sr did not contest it.
The last time Barack Obama saw his father was in 1971 when he was 10 years old. Obama Sr was killed 11 years later in a car accident in 1982.
Of his early childhood, President Obama has said 'That my father looked nothing like the people around me - that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk - barely registered in my mind.'
Dunham moved with her six-year-old son to Jakarta, Indonesia in October 1967 to live with her new husband Lolo Soetoro.
As well as his birth certificate, the U.S. President has fought to keep his school records, employment records and medical records hidden.
'Why would anybody, let alone the president of the United States, spend millions of dollars in legal fees to keep that hidden?
'As long as that goes on,' he concluded, 'I think it's a legitimate issue,' Slom said.
Earlier this month Donald Trump publicly questioned the location of Obama's birthplace in an interview with the Today show, claiming there is a ‘big possibility’ President Obama has violated the Constitution.
The real estate tycoon, who is running in the race to be the Republican presidential candidate, said he had sent investigators to Hawaii to uncover 'one of the greatest cons in the history of politics and beyond'.
'I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding,' Trump said.
In an interview with CNN Trump pointed out that there are no photos of President Obama from when he was younger, only in his teenage years.
He also claims that no one remembers him from school.
He said: 'If you go back to my first grade, my kindergarten, people remember me. Nobody from those early years remembers him.
'If you're going to be president of the United States, it says very profoundly you have to be born in this country.'
Sarah Palin has also jumped on the Trump 'birther' bandwagon, despite claiming earlier in the year that the issue was a distraction from more important issues.
'Obviously there is something that the president doesn't want people to see, that he sees going to great lengths to make sure it isn't shown. And I think that's perplexing for a lot of people,' she said.
Last week, Republican Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer, vetoed a bill that would have required presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names could appear on the state's ballot - which was widely viewed as targeting Mr Obama - calling it a 'bridge too far.'
The bill requires presidential candidates to prove they are U.S. citizens before they can be included on Arizona's ballot and receive any votes from the state.
Candidates who don't have a long form of their birth certificate are also given the option to show two alternative documents, including a baptismal or circumcision certificate, a hospital birth record or a post-partum medical record.
The Obama campaign has previously released a 'certification of live birth in the run-up to the election.
The Associated Press also found a listing for a boy named Barack Hussein Obama II born in Hawaii, in a record book at the Hawaii vital records office. This is the only government birth information, called 'index data,' available to the public.
New family: Barack Obama, far right, is seen with his step-father Lolo Soetoro, left, his baby sister Maya Soetoro and his mother Ann Dunhan, in an undated family snapshot
Birther issues: Sceptics don't believe Barack Obama, seen right with his grandfather Stanley Armour Dunham, was born in Hawaii despite the White House issuing a 'Certification of Live Birth,' left
Index: Barack Hussain Obama II is seen highlighted in a computer generated birth index from 1960-1964 held at the State Department of Health in Honolulu
Trump has repeatedly stoked the birther fires recently, and last month called on Mr Obama to 'show his birth certificate.' Trump said he has investigators in Hawaii searching for more information.
'Nobody has come in and said they're investigating for Donald Trump,' Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo, told AP, after acknowledging they could've come in without identifying themselves as representing Trump.
What the would-be sleuths won't find is Mr Obama's 'long-form birth certificate,' a confidential one-page document containing his original birth records kept on file in the first floor of the Department of Health.
Those original birth records typically include additional birth details, such as the hospital and delivering doctor, said Dr Chiyome Fukino, the state's former health director who twice looked at and publicly confirmed Mr Obama's original long-form birth records.
But the birther conspiracy theory refuses to go away.
The latest New York Times-CBS News poll found that 45 per cent of adult Republicans said they believe Mr Obama was born in another country, and 22 per cent said they don't know.
Only one-third of Republicans said they believe the president is native born. The same poll a year ago found that a plurality of Republicans believed the president was born in the U.S.
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