US President Barack Obama sought Wednesday to quash conspiracy theories alleging he was not born in the United States as the White House released his long-form birth certificate. In an extraordinary political twist, Obama was due to make a statement in the White House press briefing room at 9:45 am (1345 GMT) about the controversy, after aides said he felt it was distracting from important political debates.
“The president feels this (controversy) is bad for the country, that it is not healthy for the political debate,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign had previously released a shorter regular birth certificate issued by Hawaii authorities after conservative critics and pundits fanned rumors that he was not American born. The version released by the White House on Wednesday was a copy of a long-form, original document made at the time of his birth and kept since in official records in Obama’s native state.
The document lists Obama’s birthplace and birth date as “Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii” on August 4, 1961 at 7:24 pm.
According to the US Constitution, presidents and vice presidents must be natural born citizens of the United States.
Carney said Obama did not want American voters, as the clock ticks towards his 2012 reelection race “to be drawn into sideshows about fallacies that have been disproved with the full weight of a legal document for several years.” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer added: “the president felt it was a sideshow.” The issue of Obama’s birthplace has been grist for conservative talk show hosts and pundits for years, and has recently been brought up by billionaire property mogul Donald Trump, who is mulling a Republican presidential bid.
