Eligibility investigation petition gaining ground

Web references and referrals to WND's petition to Congress to investigate Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility for office are on the rise, with Examiner, Free Republic and other blog sites putting it in a spotlight.

Joe Newby asks, "Does Barack Obama meet the constitutional requirements to serve as president? That's the question many still want answered, given the results of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's investigation."

He notes, "as of this writing, 37,880 people have signed a petition at WND.com demanding Congress investigate the matter."

The number of names, of course, surged quickly through the total he cited, and was moving toward the mid-40,000s today.

The petition also was cited at Conservativebyte.com, at Free Republic, at ObamaBallotChallenge.com, on the website for the Ventura County Tea Party, at Farmboots, at Digg.com and others.

The effort has been spurred by the findings of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who concluded there is probable to suspect forgery in the creation of the birth certificate posted one year ago on the White House website, and fraud in its presentation.

The petition represents a last-ditch effort to clear the air on Obama's legitimacy before the November election.

"Can you believe Obama is still playing games with his identity six months before the next presidential election?" asks Joseph Farah, chief executive officer and editor of WND. "As I have long predicted, no court in America is going to take this hot potato of a case. It is the sworn duty of Congress to uphold the Constitution and hold the executive branch accountable to the people. It's time to turn up the heat on the timid, fearful Republicans and the see-no-evil Democrats."

Arpaio's investigation is the only law enforcement review that has been done into the questions surrounding Obama's birth documents and eligibility questions. He also has asked Congress for help, so far without results.

Arpaio recently told WABC radio host and WND senior staff reporter Aaron Klein that the media and politicians alike are afraid to touch the issue.

"Why didn't someone investigate this? I mean, where is everybody?" Arpaio asked Klein. "How come the federal agencies aren't investigating? We're dealing with federal issues here. So everybody's hiding, and they're still hiding."

Sign the petition now to show members of Congress just how many Americans demand constitutional integrity.

In the past, there have been only a few members of Congress who tentatively broached the subject of the constitutional eligibility of the president, only to retreat when the mainstream media pulled out a well-worn repertoire of "birther" jokes.

One of the Congress members was Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who said, regarding the constitutional qualifications for president, "Any circumvention of these constitutional requirements would be a slap in the face to the rule of law and our very democracy."

Also, Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, told a constituent that it appears the courts should resolve the issue, not Congress, and he wondered what claims can be brought to Obama's doorstep.

At the time the comments surfaced, it appeared that at least some members of Congress were breaking away from recommendations from the Congressional Research Service on how to dismiss such questions.

As WND reported, Jerry W. Mansfield, an information research specialist in the Knowledge Services Group of the Congressional Research Sevice, issued a memo to prepare members of Congress to rebut and defuse questions constituents were asking regarding Obama's presidential eligibility under the natural-born citizen requirement of the Constitution.

Many members of Congress were found to have quoted from the memo to turn away questions about eligibility.

Attached to the memo was an attack piece published by FactCheck.org to dismiss claims that Obama's short-form Certification of Live Birth, originally published during the 2008 presidential campaign by DailyKos.com, was a forgery.

When Obama released an image of a Hawaiian long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, after years of stating that the document was not available, the Hawaii Department of Health and governor's office refused to confirm for WND that the image released was an accurate representation of the state's records.

That's the document Sheriff Joe Arpaio's law enforcement investigators say probably is a forgery.

One other voice in the wilderness was that of U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, whose H.R. 1503 said:

"To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution."

The new petition demands that the 112th Congress begin a "full and impartial investigation into the constitutional eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama."

As for Sheriff Arpaio, he said he had told lead investigator Mike Zullo to debunk the "birther" claims about Obama's documents.

"My instructions were this: 'I want you to clear the president. I want to get to the bottom of this and get it off the table forever,'" Arpaio told Klein. "Didn't happen that way."

Instead, Zullo and the Cold Case Posse only confirmed concerns about the authenticity of Obama's documents.

As WND reported, Arpaio and his Cold Case Posse conducted an extensive examination of documents released by the White House last April purported to be Obama's original, long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration form, only to conclude there is probable cause the documents are forgeries.

And the sheriff concluded there is probable cause that there was fraud in the presentation of the birth document image as a genuine document.

Here's the interview:

The dispute has been around since before Obama was elected in 2008 when the first cases were filed in courts challenging his eligibility, based on a long list of missing documents or absent verifications.

Many do not believe he was born in Hawaii as he claimed, thus raising doubts about his ability to meet the U.S. Constitution's demand that a president be a "natural born citizen." Others say that doesn't even matter, as his father was a foreign national and the Founders' understanding of "natural born" would have meant the offspring of two citizens of the nation.

Numerous court cases have come and gone, some being rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court where one justice admitted the panel was avoiding the issue.

In recent weeks a new round of court challenges has arisen in which citizens utilize state laws allowing challenges to candidate eligibility. They simply are asking Obama to document his eligibility.

Judges in those cases so far have been in concert in refusing voters permission to pursue their questions under state law.

The petition specifically cites Arpaio's investigation into Obama's documentation.

It's addressed to "All members of the U.S. Congress" and states:

Whereas, the first official U.S. law enforcement investigation into Barack Obama's legal eligibility for the presidency, led by Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio and involving a six-month investigation by three professional criminal investigators and two attorneys, established "probable cause" that the document released with great fanfare by the White House April 27, 2011, as Obama's "long-form birth certificate" is a forgery;

Advertisement - story continues below

Whereas, specifically, these investigators, after interviewing dozens of witnesses, examining hundreds of documents, and taking numerous sworn statements from witnesses around the world, including multiple document experts, concluded that said "birth certificate" did not originate in a paper format, but was created – that is, forged – as an electronic file on a computer;

Whereas, the Arpaio-led law-enforcement investigation cited numerous experts demonstrating that an additional fraud was allegedly committed in the forgery of Barack Obama's Selective Service registration card;

Whereas, the investigation also found that, according to a sworn affidavit by the longtime mailman for the parents of ex-Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, Ayers' mother enthusiastically claimed she had helped pay for the Harvard Law School education of "foreign student" Barack Obama;

Whereas, Arpaio's lead investigator Michael Zullo explained at a March 1 press conference that the 1961 Hawaiian newspaper "announcements" of Barack Obama's birth confirm nothing, since the investigators "can prove beyond a doubt" that these newspapers also announced arrivals of foreign babies as well as native-born; and that the investigators even possess "documented evidence of two adopted individuals who were breathing three years prior" to their supposed Hawaii "birth" and subsequent newspaper "birth announcements";

Advertisement - story continues below

Whereas, the investigation determined that immigration files in the National Archives recording overseas arrivals into Hawaii are missing from one particular week – the week of Obama's birthday, August 4, 1961;

Whereas, , lead investigator Mike Zullo also said his team believes the Hawaii Department of Health has engaged in a systematic effort to hide from public inspection any original 1961 birth records for Obama it may have in its possession;

Whereas, investigators have advised Sheriff Arpaio they believe at least two crimes of fraud were committed: 1) The White House allegedly created a forgery it claimed was an officially produced governmental birth record; and 2) the White House allegedly presented to the residents of Maricopa County, Ariz. – and to the entire American public – a forgery represented as "proof positive" of President Obama's authentic 1961 Hawaii long-form birth certificate;

Whereas, Sheriff Arpaio said March 1: "The president can put all this to rest quite easily. All he has to do is demand the Hawaii Department of Health release to the American public and to a panel of certified court-authorized forensic examiners all original 1961 paper, microfilm and computer birth records the Hawaii Department of Health has in its possession";

Advertisement - story continues below

Whereas, Arpaio concluded: "Absent the authentication of Hawaii Department of Health 1961 birth records for Barack Obama, there is no other proof he was born anywhere within the United States";

Whereas, despite a virtual media blackout on the issue, repeated national polls show that almost half of registered U.S. voters remain unconvinced that Barack Obama's birth certificate is authentic:

The signers then demand that Congress launch an investigation because "not to finally resolve this monumental and unprecedented constitutional issue would be intolerable, and would constitute the most extreme disrespect and contempt for the U.S. Constitution."

Click here to sign the petition to Congress. (Please sign only once)

See the image released by Obama: