“PEOPLE NEED TO SLOW DOWN”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Nov. 18, 2015) — On Monday, The Post & Email published an article titled “Arpaio Claim: ‘The Government Involved’ in Creating Fake ‘Birth Certificate’ for Obama.”
Arpaio is sheriff of Maricopa County, AZ and was named as a defendant in Melendres, et al v. Arpaio, et al, which alleged racial profiling by members of the Latino community.
As a corollary to a civil contempt charge stemming from Melendres, Arpaio’s office was ordered by U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow to turn over recordings and other data created and gathered from an investigation conducted by confidential informant Dennis Montgomery over approximately a year.
One of the recordings, released by Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times after being played in court last week, was labeled by Lemons as “Fruit of the Poison Tree,” Part 2, in which billionaire Tim Blixseth initially approached Arpaio about his belief that the hacking of 153,400 bank accounts of Maricopa County residents had been carried out based on Montgomery’s alleged confession to having done so for the CIA.
Blixseth told Arpaio that Montgomery had divulged the existence of a massive computer system called “The Hammer” which was used to gather telephone numbers and breach bank accounts across the country.
Present in the initial meeting with Blixseth and Arpaio were Mike Zullo, Maricopa County Cold Case Posse lead investigator; Det. Brian Mackiewicz; and Mike Flynn, Blixseth’s attorney.
In 2012, following months of investigation, Zullo and Arpaio held two press conferences in which they stated that Obama’s long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration form are “computer-generated forgeries.” Both the press and Congress declined to investigate further.
On Wednesday evening, The Post & Email reached out to Zullo to ask the meaning of Arpaio’s reference to “the government” in the recording. At 50:05, Arpaio is heard to say, “So then we’ll decide. That birth certificate pi**ed me off, that’s the government involved in that one, you know, Hawaii and all that s***. Hawaii.”
Zullo then told us:
When Arpaio said “the government” was involved, he meant “the government of Hawaii.”
Zullo was emphatic that people “should not be talking about this because they don’t have the full context.” He continued:
People need to slow down. You don’t have every audiotape or videotape that was ever produced. You do not have the full story in context. The only people who are going to know what transpired as far as this certificate is concerned is going to be me and Montgomery. Nobody else can speak to this, and they shouldn’t.
Zullo added that he is “very concerned,” as he has addressed earlier, “that people are going to take this and run with it, and through the prism of their own understanding or by inference draw conclusions and start to propagate them as if they’re reality. They just need to slow down.”