Exclusive: Is the Hawaii Department of Health Unable to Verify the Information on Obama’s Birth Record?

“CONFIRMATION THROUGH OMISSION”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jan. 5, 2013) — On December 27, 2012, Blogger Butterdezillion published an article stating that Hawaii Department of Health Registrar Dr. Alvin Onaka “has publicly certified to AZ SOS Ken Bennett that Barack Obama’s HI birth certificate is legally non-valid and the White House image is a forgery.”  The blog post was widely circulated, published on various websites and included details of a “criminal report” which Butterdezillion filed with her local police department about the alleged crime.

Butterdezillion submitted a 187-page notarized and signed affidavit with her complaint which remains private at present but which The Post & Email has reviewed online.  We have also seen an image of the card bearing the case number which was provided by the police officer with whom she filed the report. Her complaint stated that former White House Counsel and Democrat National Committee (DNC) General Counsel Robert Bauer had committed a crime by disseminating a Certification of Nomination which was “perjurious.”

Butterdezillion has been researching Hawaii statutes for the past several years and is familiar with Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) personnel and procedures.  Since 2008, when questions regarding Obama’s birthplace first arose, the HDOH has been reluctant to release any information and even advocated for a law intended to restrain “vexatious” requesters under the state’s UIPA law.  The department has also contradicted an Associated Press report which stated that certain documentation could be made available to the public.

On April 27, 2011, the White House released what it claimed was a certified copy of Obama’s long-form birth certificate held by the Hawaii Department of Health.  In April 2009, in an apparent attempt to explain why no long-form birth record had been presented by Obama, CNN reported that the HDOH had “discarded” the original in 2001.

The Post & Email had conducted a “Hawaii Petition Campaign” in 2010 and 2011 requesting that Obama’s birth record be made public in order to settle questions about Obama’s birthplace, including the rumors that he had been born in Kenya and a report in a Hawaii newspaper stating that he had been born in Indonesia.  In 2011, neither Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie; his then-lieutenant governor, Brian Schatz; nor Acting Health Department Director Loretta Fuddy provided a response to our petition.

In January of that year, Abercrombie had vowed to “find” Obama’s long-form birth certificate so as not to “damage his chance for re-election” in 2012.  Obama reportedly won re-election with 332 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 206.  Certification of the votes by Congress took place on Friday with no objections lodged.

No school records have been made available by Obama, and an attorney representing Occidental College, which Obama allegedly attended from 1979-1981, implied that no records exist.  Currently, all three colleges where Obama is reported to have attended are fighting subpoenas to disclose his records.

On August 29, 2012, Atty. Larry Klayman sent a letter to Democratic National Committee General Counsel Robert Bauer, also of the Perkins Coie law firm and formerly Obama’s White House counsel, citing Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett’s request for a verification letter of Obama’s birth record.  Klayman’s letter stated that Onaka “failed” to “verify the birth facts for Barack Hussein Obama that are claimed on the birth certificate posted on the White House website.”

“My work has been validated by Atty. Larry Klayman in his letter to Bob Bauer,” Butterdezillion told us.  “Onaka was asked to tell us, ‘Who was his father? Who was his mother? When was he born?’ and Onaka said zilch.”

At issue is whether or not Obama was born in Hawaii as he claims, which could be a factor in determining whether or not he is a “natural born Citizen” as required for the president by Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. Those born outside of the United States such as Arnold Schwarzenegger are generally considered ineligible for the presidency.  Since Obama first took office, legal scholars have researched the meaning of the term “natural born Citizen,” with some concluding that it signifies “a child born in a country to parents who were citizens of that country.”

Most Americans understand “natural born Citizen” to mean “born in the United States” without respect to the historical origins and reason for its inclusion in the U.S. Constitution by the Framers.

A biography published by Obama’s then-literary agent stated for 16 years that he was born in the East African country of Kenya and was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.  Obama also claims that his father was a citizen of a foreign country.  Some legal scholars say that a foreign-citizen father or mother is enough to disqualify anyone from being a natural born Citizen without consideration of the person’s birthplace.

On March 1, 2012, a Cold Case Posse working with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) stated that there was probable cause to believe that the birth certificate image released by the White House the previous April was a “computer-generated forgery.”  On July 17, a second press conference was held during which Arpaio and lead investigator Mike Zullo declared that the image was “definitely fraudulent.”  No mainstream media outlet followed up by conducting its own investigation.

Zullo and Arpaio are reportedly seeking out federal authorities who might continue their investigation after having asked Congress to become involved.

No hospital anywhere in the country has claimed that Obama was born there.  When asked, media representatives at Kapiolani Medical Center, which Obama claims is his birthplace, refused to confirm Obama’s statement.  A researcher has reported that Obama is using a “synthetic identity” and is actually the son of Malcolm X and a young woman named JoAnn Newman, born in New York City in 1959.

Last March, at the request of approximately 1,200 Arizona citizens, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett asked the Hawaii Department of Health to verify the information contained in the Certificate of Live Birth image released by the White House on April 27, 2011.  Butterdezillion claimed in her blog post that Dr. Alvin Onaka, Registrar at the Hawaii Department of Health, had admitted “by omission” that whatever record is held by Hawaii is not valid.

After approximately nine weeks, Hawaii Deputy Attorney General Jill T. Nagamine provided Bennett’s office with a verification form via email and several days later via the U.S. Postal Service which “verified” 12 items “pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes §338-14.3.”  The first item reads:

1. A birth certificate is on file with the Department of Health indicating that Barack Hussein Obama, II was born in Honolulu, HI”

When The Post & Email asked Butterdezillion how she would characterize Onaka’s response for the verification, she responded, “I would say that he responded according to Hawaii statute.  He has to verify everything he can, and he cannot verify anything that he can’t. When Bennett said (paraphrased), “The items to be verified are in the attached form from the certificate of birth,” I believe that Onaka interpreted that to mean, “Please verify that the following items are from the birth certificate.”

MRS. RONDEAU:  Meaning only the items and that the information might not be the same?

BUTTER:  The information and the items might be the same, but he’s not verifying that those facts are actually true, and actually, the things Bennett asked for are not birth facts; they’re processing facts.  Onaka is not claiming that any of that is necessarily true, but he’s claiming that that is what is on their record.

MRS. RONDEAU:  Do you think that Bennett and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach received the same response from the Hawaii Department of Health?

BUTTER:  No, they didn’t get the same response.  Bennett was wrangling for several months with Hawaii to try to get any response at all.  Once they had given Arizona a response, they didn’t stonewall with everyone else.   But Kansas did not ask for the same things.  The only actual fact that Kansas asked to be verified was the actual birth certificate number.  The only other thing that they asked them to verify was that the information contained in the White House birth certificate was identical to the information contained in their record, and Onaka would not verify that.

MRS. RONDEAU:  What was Onaka’s response when Kansas asked that?

BUTTER:  Onaka’s response was that he verified that “10641” was the number for Obama’s birth certificate, and he verified that the information contained in the White House birth certificate image – and then he gave a different link than what Kobach had provided – “matches” the information contained in the original record.  He did not use the words “identical to.”

MRS. RONDEAU:  But Kobach did?

BUTTER:  Yes, Kobach did.  The verification that he received is further confirmation that there’s a difference between “matching” and being “identical to.”  He specifically asked if the information was “identical to,” but Onaka would not verify that.  He used the word “matching,” but that is not the same as “identical to.”

MRS. RONDEAU:  Do you know of any response received by Klayman to his letter?

BUTTER:  I don’t think he received any response to it.  A copy of the letter to Bauer was also sent to every secretary of state, every attorney general, every state Democrat Party chair, and every member of the Commission on Presidential Debates.  Several people sent follow-up letters saying why it mattered and why something needed to be done.  As far as I know, no one received any response from anyone.

MRS. RONDEAU:  Did Larry Klayman take any further action?

BUTTER:  No, he was busy with his own lawsuits, although there was a follow-up article by Bob Unruh at WorldNetDaily.

MRS. RONDEAU:  What are you recommending that people do to challenge Obama’s qualifications?

BUTTER:  Because the electoral votes were certified for Obama on Friday, someone with standing needs to challenge Obama’s constitutional ability to act as president under the provisions of the 20th Amendment.  What we have now from Hawaii is legal confirmation that there are no legally-established birth facts for Obama, and without legally-established birth facts, there is no way that he could ever qualify.  So any aggrieved party – anything that resulted from Obama having acted as president – would have, or should have, legal standing to challenge what was done to them.

For instance, Hobby Lobby was denied a stay of the enforcement of the HHS health care law mandate.  They were denied that by Sonia Sotomayor, and she was nominated by Obama.  So Hobby Lobby would have grounds to say that that was not a valid denial from Sonia Sotomayor because she is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court because she was nominated by someone ineligible.  They obviously have aggrieved status right now because they have to pay fines for each day that they have not complied – millions of dollars’ worth.  In doing that, they could challenge both the ability of Sotomayor and Kagan to be on the Supreme Court.  Then Kagan and Sotomayor would have to be excused.

MRS. RONDEAU:  How would someone frame such a complaint?

BUTTER:  The person could say that “Ken Bennett asked Onaka to verify that Barack Hussein Obama II, male, was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, HI on the island of Oahu to Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama.  Onaka was legally required to verify any fact that he could certify as to how the birth actually happened.  In his verification, he did not verify any of those things.  Therefore, we know that there are no legally-established birth facts for Obama, and without legally-established birth facts, there is no way that anybody could know that he is qualified.”

MRS. RONDEAU:  Is it possible that Onaka could say that he looked in the record and everything matches, so the record is presumed valid?

BUTTER:  He did say that it matches what they have on file, and he did certify that this was done in compliance with HRS 338-14.3, which says that they have to verify everything that they can.  He mentioned the word “Honolulu” there.  They cannot verify anything that has not been submitted to be verified.  The word “Honolulu” was nowhere on there.  There were two pages of Bennett’s request.

MRS. RONDEAU:  Didn’t Bennett leave off the birth date?

BUTTER:  Bennett did ask about the birth date.  He asked all of those things to be verified, but that part was on the actual application form.  In the letter that he wrote, he said, “Enclosed please find a request for a verification in lieu of a certified copy of the birth record of Barack Hussein Obama II.  In addition to the items to be verified in the attached form, please verify the following items from the record of birth.”  And then there is a long list.

But he asked for the items that were on the attached form to be verified, and those items included that Obama is male, “August 4, 1961,” “Honolulu,” “Oahu,” “Stanley Ann Dunham” and “Barack Hussein Obama.”

Now if Onaka was actually verifying that Obama was born in Honolulu, he would also have to verify all of the other things, including Oahu.

MRS. RONDEAU:  How would he do that?

BUTTER:  He would say, “I, Alvin Onaka, looking at the original record for Barack Hussein Obama, II, verify that Barack Hussein Obama II, male, was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu to Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama.”

MRS. RONDEAU:  So he would have to parrot back what the requester asked and make it into a statement?

BUTTER:  Yes.

MRS. RONDEAU:  So the fact that he said, “This matches what we have on file…”

BUTTER:  Yes.  He never said that those facts were true.  He said “This matches what we have in our records.”  He can’t verify that it’s true because the record they have is not valid.  He can verify that it’s on their record, but he can’t verify that it’s true, because with a non-valid record, it has no probative value. So he can’t say what the birth facts are; he has no idea what the real birth facts are because the certificate they have has no legal value.

MRS. RONDEAU:  Let’s say that someone submits a request for verification for someone else’s birth record information. Would Onaka be able to look at the record and verify that the items in that person’s birth record are accurate?  How would he know?

BUTTER:  As long as it’s a legally valid record, it has prima facie value, which means it’s taken at face value.  In Hawaii law, the only times that it is not prima facie evidence is if it is late or altered.  If it is late or altered, then HRS 338-17 says that “The probative value of a ‘late’ or ‘altered’ certificate shall be determined by the judicial or administrative body or official before whom the certificate is offered as evidence.”  If it’s late or altered, it has no probative value, because they don’t claim to be able to investigate what’s true and what’s not.  If it’s late or altered, it needs to be investigated by somebody who has legal authority to apply the Federal Rules of Evidence.

MRS. RONDEAU:  So you believe that whatever Onaka has on file with Obama’s name on it is either late or altered or somehow invalid…or hasn’t been validated the way it would need to be because it was late or altered?

BUTTER:  Yes.  In order for it to have any legal value, it would have to go through an administrative or judicial proceeding.

MRS. RONDEAU:  Through that, would they presumably establish the facts with research?

BUTTER:  Yes.  That is what needs to happen with Obama’s record before he could ever qualify.  If members of Congress really believe that Obama is eligible and that he can lawfully be president, then the best thing they can do is to file a lawsuit so that that procedure can happen and his birth facts can be legally established.

MRS. RONDEAU:  Wasn’t there one Secretary of State who didn’t ask about Obama’s birth date?

BUTTER:  Onaka has never verified the birth date.  He has never verified any of the critical facts:  neither the birth date, the mother and father, nor anything critical to eligibility have even been mentioned in the verifications that Onaka has put out.  Every electoral vote that Obama received was because Bob Bauer submitted fraudulent nomination papers.  If Onaka answered those verification requests accurately, then it would have to mean that Obama’s record is not valid.  The letter of verification that was sent out by Ken Bennett had two pages, and no one in the media ever asked to see the other page.  It says, “Enclosed please find a request for a verification in lieu of a certified copy for the birth record of Barack Hussein Obama II.  In addition to the items to be verified in the attached form, please verify the following items from the record of birth:” He is clearly indicating that there is another page, and yet nobody in the media ever asked to see that other page.  It was not requested until Tom Ballantyne requested it, and once I had the proof that yes, indeed, Bennett did ask for the gender, the date of birth, the city of birth, the island of birth, the mother’s name, and the father’s name to be verified and that those were not verified even though the law requires them to be if they can be…that gave it away.  It’s a confirmation through omission.

MRS. RONDEAU:  So by omitting the specific reference to all of the different items, he was giving a nebulous answer?

BUTTER:  The statute allows no discretion.  HRS 338-14.3 says, “(a) Subject to the requirements of section 338-18, the department of health, upon request, shall furnish to any applicant, in lieu of the issuance of a certified copy, a verification of the existence of a certificate and any other information that the applicant provides to be verified relating to the vital event that pertains to the certificate” [emphasis The Post & Email’s].  He had no option but to give back to Bennett every fact that he could say was true, and he would not say the gender, the date of birth, the city of birth, the island of birth, the mother’s name or the father’s name.

MRS. RONDEAU:  Do you think Onaka is aware of that nuance?

BUTTER:  I absolutely do.

MRS. RONDEAU:  Is there a possibility that he thinks his response was adequate?

BUTTER:  I would say “No chance.”

MRS. RONDEAU:  Do you think that there is any way that Bob Bauer could say that he is not aware of the distinction in Hawaii law whereby Onaka would have had to verify each fact?

BUTTER:  If he wants to claim to be incompetent, he could say that; it would be his only defense.  The statute is clear:  it uses “shall,” which is mandatory, and it says “any,” which is all-inclusive.  There is no wiggle room for that.

The other thing, too, is that one of the things that Bennett asked to be verified was that the copy of the birth certificate on the White House website is a true and accurate representation of the original record on file.  Onaka would not verify that.  So any lawyer who was looking at that immediately realized that Onaka had verified the White House image as a forgery.  Instead, he substituted “I verify that the information contained in that birth certificate matches what we have on file,” and the Mississippi Democratic Executive Committee (MDEC) immediately latched onto that.  This is the part that was deceptive about what Onaka said:  If he were not going to verify that it was a true and accurate representation of the original record on file, then he should not have verified anything. He shouldn’t have said “The information matches.” So he volunteered that, which he was not allowed to do.  It gave a fig leaf, basically, and the MDEC latched onto that because they realized that Onaka was not going to say that there was anything genuine about the White House image, but he did say that the information is the same.

[Editor’s Note:  The MDEC is a defendant in a case filed by Atty. Orly Taitz in Mississippi alleging racketeering, forgery, and fraud regarding Obama’s birth certificate, Selective Service registration form, and Social Security number.  Taitz alleges that the birth certificate image has been manipulated by changing its color and “halo effect” around some of the letters and is therefore “a forgery of a forgery.”]

[Editor’s Note:  On May 24, 2012, The Washington Times published a report which stated that Onaka did not respond to “Whether or not the image of President Obama’s ‘long form’ Certificate of Live Birth, posted on the White House web site on April 27, 2011 is a ‘true and accurate representation of the original record in your files.'”]

MRS. RONDEAU:  And the average person on the street would probably accept that.

BUTTER:  Yes, and they don’t realize that it would still match even if the record they have in Hawaii is non-valid.  There is one more thing:  the last item on the long-form is “Evidence for Delayed Filing or Alteration.”  There was a little bit of trickery that was done with that, because what is the difference between the information “matching” and the information being “identical to?”  If the information matches, then you can say, “The White House image says ‘Honolulu;’ the actual record says ‘Honolulu,’ so they match.  But what if there is something blank on the White House image?  Well, then you don’t have anything to check. There’s nothing there, so you don’t check.  The White House image doesn’t have anything in the box for “Evidence for Delayed Filing,” so you don’t check it; it matches.

MRS. RONDEAU:  What about the record Onaka has?  Is there something in that last box?

BUTTER:  Presumably, there is something in the box on the one that Onaka has.  But when asked if the information that’s in Record A matches the information that’s in Record B, if there is nothing in Record A, then you don’t check it against Record B.

MRS. RONDEAU:  And he wouldn’t necessarily say, “Gee, Record A has a blank box, but my record has something there.”

BUTTER:  Right; he wouldn’t say that.  He would only check if the information that was actually included in the White House image was on his copy.  To say that it’s “identical to” would mean that if it’s on the one, it’s on the other; if it’s blank on the one, it’s blank on the other.  And he would not say that.”

——————————-

In May 2010, Butterdezillion had asked the Hawaii Department of Health for a verification of the birth record of Virginia Sunahara, a baby born on August 4, 1961 who lived less than 24 hours.  She was told in an email that there was “no record responsive” to her request, but a short-form Certification of Live Birth was produced for her brother upon his request.  When Duncan Sunahara asked for a certified copy of the original long-form birth certificate, he was denied.  He appealed, was denied, and filed a lawsuit last January to obtain it.  Ultimately Judge Rhonda Nishimura sided with the government in denying Mr. Sunahara the record he had requested, contending that the health department could decide in which format a record could be produced.

A second researcher found Virginia Sunahara’s name in the General Birth Index and Death Index upon visiting the Hawaii Department of Health during the summer of 2010.  While in Hawaii, she took photos of the grave marker for Virginia, who is buried with her father Tomio at the Mililani Park Memorial in Waipi’o.

It was reported that hospital records for Virginia exist from Wahiawa Hospital, where she was born, but that the hospital to which she was transferred, Kapiolani, reported that it has no records for her.

“Obama perjured himself at least six times in the affidavits that he submitted to be admitted to the state ballots of Arizona, West Virginia and North Carolina, but we can’t touch him right now because the Constitution is interpreted as saying that he has to be impeached first,” Butterdezillion said.  “But Bob Bauer is not the president, and that’s why I filed the criminal complaint against him.  I collected the Official Certificates of Nomination and the transmittal letters from about 19 states, those that responded to my FOIA requests, so my idea was that I would print out a copy of the affidavit and send it to the police departments in the state capitals where the fraudulent OCONs were submitted.  But what I found out was that for fraud, perjury and subornation of perjury, it has to be filed in person.  If someone else reported what Bob Bauer did based on the same legal logic that I used to report the crime, they need to get a case number.  Eventually it would have to go to all the state attorneys general.  If there is a case filed and it is referred to their state attorney general, or even before it’s referred to their state attorney general, people can let me know and I can send the affidavit in support of that criminal case.”