Birth Certificate Exposé Brings Out Forgery Defenders

by Sharon Rondeau

(Apr. 23, 2024) – On Thursday, The Post & Email published an article reporting the National Archives’ displaying of an “unauthenticated” long-form birth certificate image purportedly issued by the State of Hawaii in 2011 to Barack Hussein Obama.  

The revelation was made by Mike Zullo, lead investigator of a 5+-year probe into the image’s authenticity launched by then-Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joseph Arpaio at the request of more than 100 of his constituents and delegated to his “Cold Case Posse.”

Concerns had arisen soon after Obama, the junior first-term U.S. senator from Illinois, announced his presidential ambitions in February 2007 amid numerous reports of his birth overseas, presumably precluding him from being a “natural born Citizen,” as Article II of the Constitution requires of the president.

While such reports were not contested prior to Obama’s announcement, after launching his campaign he claimed to have been born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, HI. While some sources contemporaneously reported the birth occurred at Queens Hospital, others said his birthplace was the Kapi’olani Medical Center for Women & Children, then known as Kapi’olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital.

Six months into the investigation, Zullo reported in an initial press conference that he and his fellow team members were unable to clear the image as derived from a real, paper document.  Further, Zullo declared the image a “computer-generated forgery” created “with the intent to deceive.”

Additionally, Zullo said, Obama’s purported Selective Service registration form was found to be a “hard-copy forgery.”

Obama claims his mother was Stanley Ann Dunham, a U.S.-born anthropologist who met his father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., in a Russian-language class at the University of Hawaii. They reportedly married on February 2, 1961, notwithstanding that Obama was already married to a woman in Kenya with whom he had a son.

Various reports question that narrative, and at a second press conference Zullo expressed doubt that Obama’s parents were the individuals identified in his life story. 

A third presser on December 15, 2016 further confirmed the initial findings of the birth-certificate forgery, reinforced by reports Zullo received from two forensic document examiners engaged by the investigation who conducted their efforts separately, unaware of the other’s research.

In his 2020 memoir, “Sheriff Joe Arpaio: An American Legend,” Arpaio suggested the investigation found Obama to be a “naturalized citizen” and therefore ineligible to the presidency.

“After all my hard work and dedication to enforcing illegal immigration laws,” Arpaio wrote in a chapter dedicated to the probe, “America could have possibly elected a naturalized citizen, born of a U.S. citizen, but constitutionally unqualified to serve as president, to two terms as commander-in-chief and, for too many, it’s just too much to bear. With all that is coming out now, in relation to the government’s intelligence coup d’état, the only hope that history gets this right in the near term is an unfettered President Donald J. Trump in a second term. If not, history may not tell the real story for 50 years—if ever.”

At an off-the-record press conference on April 27, 2011 shortly before the White House uploaded the birth-certificate image to its website, then-Press Secretary Jay Carney, Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer and White House Counsel Robert Bauer told reporters in a “gaggle” that the two “certified copies” of Obama’s “long-form” birth certificate allegedly obtained from the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) by Obama’s personal attorney, Judith Corley, bore a “seal.”

Later that day, NBC News’s Savannah Guthrie posted photos of the purported document, claiming to have “felt the raised seal.” 

Following the gaggle, where reporters were not permitted to take photographs or record the event, Obama gave a press conference in which he stated, “As many of you have been briefed, we provided additional information today about the site of my birth.”

Noted at the time by many was that Obama did not hold the document as he spoke to reporters.  When asked during the gaggle, Pfeiffer affirmed Obama would not be displaying the document during his remarks later that day.

“He will not (be holding it), and I will not leave it here for him to do so,” Pfeiffer responded to an unnamed reporter asking the question.  “But it will — the State Department of Health in Hawaii will obviously attest that that is a — what they have on file.  As Bob said, it’s in a book in Hawaii.”

However, in an interview last week Zullo told The Post & Email that “the Archives is literally displaying an unauthenticated, fictitious document because the State of Hawaii would not release a birth certificate without a seal” and that the image bears none.

To support his contention, Zullo provided an enhanced image produced by a subject-matter expert revealing no visible seal.

As with our previous coverage of the Obama birth-certificate saga, Thursday’s article generated considerable response from readers, including “Joe Leland,” “Johnathan J,” “Ray Fremick” and “Reality Check,” aka “RC,” who claim an official state seal is visible upon enlarging the lower left portion of the image.

“I made it easy for you and enlarged the part with the seal,” RC wrote in a comment, supplying a link to his website leading to the image below reportedly taken from Guthrie’s UberSocial account the day of its release.

Guthrie is the only journalist to claim she “felt the raised seal” after Pfeiffer distributed “copies” of the purported document to gaggle attendees.

Two images were also supplied to this writer via email, presumably by “Johnathan J” in response to our request for a screenshot, to support his claim that “In the archive’s copy of the image, the outline of the seal is visible (in the lower left quadrent) [sic].”

In any case, the email response came from an individual calling himself “Charlie Hughes,” likely invoking the 1916 Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes who then-Secretary of State Breckinridge Long posited was ineligible due to his birth to a British-citizen father.

Given that Obama’s claimed father was from Kenya when it was a British colony, to many concerned Americans he presented the same obstacle to his son’s U.S. presidential eligibility as did Hughes’s father.

“Since I don’t know how to post an image to your comment section here are screenshot images of a round seal on both the Obama birth certificate PDF and the Savannah Guthrie photograph,” “Johnathan J/Charlie Hughes” wrote. “I added lines to indicate where the double dotted lines that make up the outside border of the seal are on the certificate.”

The same region of the NARA version of the document appears as follows as of this writing:

In response to the claims of a visible seal, Zullo told The Post & Email:

The issue with the seal has two aspects to consider. Using an electric steel embosser would result in a flawless seal due to even pressure distribution across its entire diameter. Alternatively, if done manually, missing pieces in the seal wouldn’t occur unless deliberately avoided. Just like the Selective Service stamp, a light impression was made on the paper, hinting at something being stamped but not distinct enough to serve as a true identifying mark. It lacks the authority of a state-issued Hawaiian seal, making it unidentifiable.

In contrast, Zullo said, paper records he obtained from individuals whose 1961 births were recorded by the Hawaii Department of Health (HDOH) demonstrate a clear, completely round state seal legible without magnification or manipulation.

The Post & Email notes that each seal imprint bears two outlines rather than one.

Zullo continued:

Apparently this is a sensitive topic. Obama apple-polishers are approaching it with great fear and intensity. One key point to emphasize is that the supposed Hawaiian state seal on the birth certificate cannot be positively identified as being authentically produced by the State of Hawaii government agency responsible for such stamps. Embossings on a paper with zero identifying markers do not make it an official seal. 

In no previous presidential election has a birth certificate held such importance as a critical and weighty document issued by the government. However, in this case, there seem to be numerous irregularities suggesting and proving a fraudulent creation process and intentional evasion during production. Clear evidence supporting the birth certificate’s origin and legitimacy appears to be lacking, raising doubt even about basic validations like the presence of an authentic raised state seal.

During our press conference, I made a deliberate decision not to disclose the contentious evidence related to the state seal, just as I refrained from presenting other concerning details regarding the PDF document. It is worth noting that the State of Hawaii does not publish vital statistics documents in PDF format. This tactic of using PDFs is consistent with methods previously used by this administration to convince individuals of the validity of specific documents, despite significant doubts.

During an official press event, President Obama chose not to publicly showcase his own original paper birth certificate to confirm its authenticity. He did not physically present the document or demonstrate ownership by waving it around. As a result, the public has never had the opportunity to view the physical copy of the birth certificate as it was never presented.

The handling of this issue is more dubious than the fictitious birth document, especially considering that this individual’s eligibility for the presidency has been a topic of debate for a significant period. This aspect warrants additional scrutiny.

When we inquired of Zullo whether he thinks those supporting the authenticity of the birth-certificate image are financially compensated for their work, he firmly stated, “I believe they are all paid operatives who have been tasked with the birth certificate issue, and they continue to be on assignment. This is evident whenever this topic is raised on your site, as they are quick to scrutinize and criticize it.”