Hawaii State Registrar does not verify authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate

Hawaii State Registrar does not verify authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2012 – The “Verification of Birth” letter sent by the Hawaii State Registrar Alvin T. Onaka Ph.D to Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett fails to respond to the fundamental question asked by Mr. Bennett in a March 30, 2012 letter to Hawaii Department of Health officials: 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”.

The official whose signature appears on the “Verification of Birth,” as well as the copy of President Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth released by the White House is Onaka who is refusing to talk to Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (Ariz.) Cold Case Posse investigator Mike Zullo who was on the ground in Hawaii.

In response to an outcry from Arizona constituents troubled by the March 1, 2012 Cold Case Posse announcement there is probable cause the image posted on the White House website is a forgery, Arizona Secretary Bennett enclosed a printout of the White House website image with his letter, and requested verification that the image is a “true and accurate representation of the original record in your files”.

Maricopa County Sheriff's Department Cold Case Posse lead investigator Michael Zullo

At question is that an “official birth certificate” provided on request is not the original document created at the time of birth. If you are from, say Chicago, you can order an official birth certificate from City Hall, but it is not the original or even an exact facsimile of your birth certificate. The document you receive carries the Secretary of State’s seal confirming that the same “information” that would be found on your original birth certificate records is accurately reflected.

On May 22, 2012, after more than six weeks of wrangling over the legal authority of Arizona’s request, the Hawaii Department of Health did produce a “Verification of Birth” which at first glance appears to answer Mr. Bennett’s original forgery question.

Arizona Secretary of State Bennett March 30, 2012 letter asked Hawaii health officials the following:

“Please verify that the attached copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for Mr. Obama is a true and accurate representation of the original record in your files.”

The May 22, 2012 Hawaii “Verification of Birth”, signed by Hawaii State Registrar Onaka, includes the following statement:

“I verify that the information in the copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for Mr. Obama that you attached with your request matches the original record in our file”.

During a forgery investigation, certifying, “information matches” does not address the central and entirely separate issue of a whether a suspicious document is a true copy of an original document. The question remains if a forgery can contain information similar or even identical to that contained in an authentic document, yet still be a forgery.

Investigators with the Cold Case Posse announced during a March 1, 2012 press conference that, based on forensic evidence as outlined in a video presentation to reporters, there is probable cause the “long form” Certificate of Live Birth posted on the White House website is a forgery.

Creating suspicion over the documents authenticity is that Hawaii Department of Health officials have consistently blocked any attempts by citizens, the media, and now Arizona law enforcement, to access and inspect President Obama’s original vital records.

Cold Case Posse lead investigator Michael Zullo, accompanied by a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deputy, visited the Hawaii Department of Health in Honolulu last Monday, but was not allowed to see President Obama’s birth records.

Even so, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett said on Wednesday that Hawaii’s “Verification of Birth” satisfies Arizona requirements, and that Barack Obama will appear on the November ballot.

Another example of questionable language being incorporated in documents surrounding President Obama’s vital records includes the new Selective Service System privacy rules as uncovered by Communities @WashingtonTimes.com. Published only four days after an announcement by World Net Daily that Sheriff Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse was opening an investigation of allegations that President Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth and selective service registration form were forgeries, those privacy rules contain subtle changes in language.

A May 10, 2012 letter from the Selective Service System Associate Director for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs Richard Flahavan to Cold Case Posse lead investigator Michael Zullo also contains carefully crafted legal language that navigates around fundamental questions presented to the agency by investigators while failing to provide direct answers.

The release of the “Verification of Birth” coincides with a perfect storm of developments that relate to President Obama’s birth certificate, to wit:

Four days before Hawaii officials released the “Verification of Birth”, Breitbart.com uncovered a 1991 promotional client list pamphlet published by the President’s former literary agency Acton & Dystel, which proclaims that Barack Obama was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii”.

Miriam Goderich, now with Drystel & Goderich Literary Management, issued a press release in response to discovery of the pamphlet:

“This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me -- an agency assistant at the time. There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more."

On Monday May 21, 2012, one day before the “Verification of Birth” was released, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio dispatched Cold Case Posse lead investigator Michael Zullo to Hawaii, accompanied by a deputy due to unspecified security concerns.

Sheriff Arpaio told ABC15 Phoenix on Tuesday that he doesn’t care how much the investigation costs. “If I have to send ten deputies down there for security reasons, I’ll do it” he said.

In the meantime, major media outlets such as USA Today were reporting on Secretary Bennett’s statement to a radio interviewer that it “was possible” President Obama would not make it onto the Arizona ballot for the November general election.

Following the release of the Hawaii “Verification of Birth”, some media called for the official end to all questions concerning President Obama’s Hawaii birth records while failing to carefully analyze the response provide by Dr. Onaka to Secretary Bennett’s specific requests.

Also of interest is that It has been noted that the April 27, 2011 release of an image the White House maintains is President Obama’s Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth coincided with the publication of Jerome Cori’s book “Where’s the Birth Certificate?”