The New York Times Publishes Fake News on Obama Birth Certificate

WHILE ALLEGEDLY REPORTING FAKE NEWS!

by Sharon Rondeau

(May 7, 2017) — In an article dated January 18, 2017 about Donald Trump allegedly spreading “fake news,” The New York Times reported that doubts about the authenticity of Barack Hussein Obama’s “birth certificate” were “debunked and pushed to the realm of conspiracy theorists after Mr. Obama released his short-form birth certificate from the Hawaii Department of Health in 2008.”

Faulting Trump for having tweeted in August 2012 that “an ‘extremely credible source’” had allegedly informed him that Obama’s “certificate” is fraudulent, the writer claimed that “Mr. Trump was roundly denounced for continuing to push the conspiracy theory.”

She then said that despite the admonitions, Trump won the 2016 election with the support of “the largely white Republican base” to which he reportedly “solidified his connection,” apparently because of his expressed questions about Obama’s personal records.

The writer is incorrect on several fronts.

On the first, the “birth certificate” to which the writer referred, released on June 12, 2008 on several websites, is still considered a forgery by a number of analysts who noted that it lacks a raised seal and registrar’s stamp.  Moreover, there exists no proof that the image posted on Obama’s 2008 campaign website, The Daily KOS, Politifact, Snopes and other websites was obtained through official channels.

In separate sections of the article dealing with Trump’s embracing of other alleged “fake news” subjects, The Times article cited Politifact and Snopes as “fact-checking websites.”

While acknowledging Trump’s statements made in early 2011 expressing his doubt as to the authenticity of the “short-form” image produced in 2008 and Obama’s claim to presidential eligibility, the author completely skirted the posting of a second image on April 27, 2011 by the Obama White House purported to be a scan of a certified copy of Obama’s “long-form” birth certificate.

Within hours of its publication, despite Obama himself having claimed ownership of it at a press conference, the image was declared a poor forgery by several experts.

In August of that year, then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, self-described as “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” asked one of his volunteer posses to launch an investigation into the image given that more than 200 of his constituents had signed a petition expressing concern that if the reports of forgery were accurate, their votes would mean nothing in the upcoming 2012 election.

Rather than being short-lived, the investigation ultimately spanned more than five years when it concluded in December 2016.

Like most other mainstream media outlets, The New York Times ignored the evidence released during that time frame in three separate press conferences leading to investigators’ conclusion that the “long-form” birth certificate image is a “computer-generated forgery.”

In addition, the document disseminated to various FOIA requesters beginning in late 2008 by the Selective Service System (SSS) purported to be Obama’s Selective Service registration form was found to be fraudulent.

At the conclusion of the second press conference on July 17, 2012, Arpaio expressed incredulity that the media had ignored and failed to investigate the evidence released to that point and termed the matter one of “national security.”

An opinion piece published by The Times’s Editorial Board just after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would prosecute Arpaio criminally upon the recommendation of a federal judge states that Arpaio’s investigation of Obama’s birth certificate was “a looney-tune vendetta.”

However, the Board and newspaper at large has ignored credible reports from NPR and the Associated Press stating that Obama was born in Kenya, which, if true, might explain why forgeries were created to make it appear that Obama was born in the United States.

Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a “natural born Citizen,” understood by most Americans to mean “born in the United States.”

MSNBC and the Honolulu Advertiser have reported Obama as “born in Indonesia,” facts also ignored by The Times.  In 1991, Obama’s then-literary agent published a biography of him stating that he was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

Any credible and reliable news organization would have looked into the various statements about Obama’s background to discover how and why discrepancies about an item as basic as his birthplace arose.

Obama’s own half-sister has described him as “Kenyan,” while members of the 2010 Kenyan Parliament claimed he was born there.

Arpaio had said at the first press conference on March 1, 2012 that in launching the investigation, he had hoped to “clear the president” of any presumed wrongdoing or suspicion.

Obviously relishing the prospect of Arpaio’s vanquishing in court by the Department of Justice on a criminal contempt-of-court charge announced in October, the NYT Editorial Board opined that ‘”Contempt’ is a fitting word for this long-overdue prosecution — not just contempt for the court, but for the people, for civil order, for justice.”

The Board then linked Arpaio to Donald Trump on the issue of illegal aliens, although not in those words:

In quoting Arpaio’s claim that the government had abused its power as retribution for his attempt to “enforce the rule of law,” the Board, whose members remain nameless, wrote, “Does he think the government is that stupid?”

On April 21 on the “Freedom Friday” radio show, lead birth certificate investigator Mike Zullo explained that a new law firm working on Arpaio’s behalf recently discovered that the Obama Justice Department charged Arpaio utilizing a law encompassing a five-year statute of limitations but requiring that the government have brought the case. However, the criminal contempt matter arose from a civil contempt finding as an outgrowth of the civil suit correctly referenced by The Times’s Editorial Board as having been filed by the ACLU.

The lead attorney, Mark Goldman, appealed his finding to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose two-judge panel at the time issued an order to the Justice Department to provide a response “within 14 days” to “issues that warrant an answer.”

On November 8, Arpaio lost his bid for a seventh term as Maricopa County Sheriff, an outcome Zullo speculated was the goal of the Justice Department.  “They needed a statute to charge him and they could not use the correct statute.  They ginned this up and used the wrong statute,” Zullo said on the radio program.

The New York Times failed to report that the final press conference of December 15, 2016, Zullo revealed that two forensic analysts which he commissioned, approaching the long-form birth certificate image from different disciplines and unaware of each other, reached very similar conclusions to his own.

Based on this writer’s research, The Times has published no articles containing Zullo’s name, while the outlet has written copiously about Arpaio.

Just after the final press conference, Arpaio and Zullo said on the Alex Jones radio show that they are determined to see that the evidence gathered over the five-year probe is presented to federal officials with the ability and the will to investigate.