Republican Congressman Steve King says it’s been clear to him that President Obama is a “natural born” U.S. citizen, but King is raising questions about Obama’s decision to release his birth certificate last week.
King has seen the 1961 newspaper announcement of Obama’s birth in files at the Library of Congress and King said a couple of years ago it was that document that proved to him Obama was born in the U.S. However, King says it’s curious that Obama waited so long to release the “long-form” certificate of his birth in Hawaii.
“Mr. President, why did we wait two and a half years to see this? What was the reason or objective?” King asked rhetorically during a radio interview. “And I don’t know the answer to that.”
Conspiracy theories about the actual site of Obama’s birth have swirled for years — something that became known as the “birther movement”. Donald Trump, the reality show star who is toying with a race for the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nomination, said early last week that he had been told Obama’s birth certificate “doesn’t exist.” So-called “birthers” claimed Obama had been born in Kenya, and Congressman King says Obama released the birth certificate to “silence” that.
“Now it’s out there and it seems to be credible from what I’m picking up, so let’s get on to the next thing,” King said during a recent radio interview.
But King suggests it “doesn’t make sense” that Obama let the issue drag on and on for years before he released his long-form birth certificate.
“Now it casts a question on some of the other judgement calls that the president makes,” King says. “That wasn’t a good judgement call.”
President Obama released his long-form birth certificate last Wednesday, saying it was time to focus on the nation’s real challenges and quit listening to the “carnival barkers” who’ve been squawking about his birth certificate. Obama released a short-form copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate during the 2008 campaign.
(Additional reporting by Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic)