Posted: August 07, 2009
12:30 am Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
 Hawaii state Sen. Will Espero |
Hawaii state Sen. Will Espero, a Democrat, has confirmed plans to introduce legislation through which the state's lawmakers would force the public disclosure of all President Obama's birth documents held by the Hawaii Department of Health, including President Obama’s long-form original birth certificate.
Espero told WND his bill is aimed at "giving citizens access to birth records" under a standard of government transparency which would permit journalists to request in writing the public disclosure of vital birth records including long-form birth certificates of all persons born in Hawaii. He said it would include the release of birth records on those previously born in Hawaii.
"My decision to file the legislation was primarily a result of the fuss over President Obama's birth records and the lingering questions," Espero said.
Espero told WND that he believes President Obama was born in Hawaii."My motivation is strictly to promote transparency," he said. "When I found out that Hawaii birth records were not available to the public my first thought was, 'Why wouldn't they be available to the public?'
"As far as I am concerned, records regarding whether a person was born here or not should be in the public domain," he said.
Asked specifically about Obama's birth records, including the original long-form birth certificate, Espero said, "Whatever birth records regarding President Obama that the Hawaii Department has on file should be made public."
Espero emphasized that his legislation would make provisions to deal with security issues by making sure no information would be released that could aid criminals to commit identity theft.
Once his legislation is drafted, Espero said he would submit it to Hawaii Director of Health Dr. Chiyome Fukino for comment before introducing the legislation to the Hawaii state legislature.
WND previously reported that the Hawaii Department of Health destroyed no paper long-form original birth certificate records when the agency moved to electronic record keeping in 2001.
"I am not aware of any birth certificate records that have been destroyed by the department," Janice Okubo, Public Information Officer for the Hawaii DOH, told WND.
"When the department went electronic in 2001, vital records whether in paper form or any other form have been maintained. We don't destroy records," she said.
Okubo affirmed that beginning in 2001, all vital records including birth records moved to electronic formats.
"Any records that we had in paper or any other form before 2001 are still in file within the department," she insisted. "We have not destroyed any vital statistics records that we have."
WND has also reported the Hawaiian Department of Health declined to authenticate either of the two versions of President Obama's short-form "Certification of Live Birth," posted online – one image produced by the Obama campaign and the other produced by FactCheck.org.
Okubu also had no explanation for why Dr. Chiyome Fukino's initial press release in her position as chief of the health department last October and subsequent press release on July 27 avoided declaring the posted images to be authentic documents.
WND has reported the Kenyan birth document released by California attorney Orly Taitz is probably not authentic, according to WND's investigative operatives in Africa.
That's even though officials in Nairobi do not rule out the possibility President Obama may indeed have been born in their country.
WND obtained several samples of Kenyan birth certificates in use around Aug. 4, 1961, the date of Obama's birth, showing differences from the Taitz document. Earlier Kenyan birth certificate samples obtained by WND had shown similarities to the Taitz document, but it was determined they were not contemporaneous.
WND reported Sunday on the document Taitz has been trying to authenticate.
She filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California requesting the purported evidence of Obama's birth – both the alleged birth certificate and foreign records not yet obtained – be preserved from destruction. She also asked for permission to legally request documents from Kenya and is seeking a subpoena for a deposition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"I filed the motion with the court asking for expedited discovery, which would allow me to start subpoenas and depositions even before Obama and the government responds," Taitz told WND then. "I am asking the judge to give me the power to subpoena the documents from the Kenyan embassy and to require a deposition from Hillary Clinton so they will be forced to authenticate [the birth certificate]."
A judge shortly later dismissed the document and Taitz' requests.
The document she revealed:
 This document purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth for Barack Obama, allegedly born in Mombasa, Kenya, in 1961 |
But an authentic 1961-era Kenyan birth certificate obtained by WND shows distinct differences.
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The verified 1961-era Kenyan birth certificate is described at the top as a "Government of Kenya" document. It includes: Where Born; Name or names; Sex; Father's occupation and rank; Father's nationality; Name and maiden name for mother; Mother's Occupation; Mother's nationality; Signature, description and residence of information; Date of birth; Date of registration; Baptismal name if added or altered after registration of birth; Reference to register.
Kenyan government officials interviewed by WND sources in Kenya have pointed out a key difference in the Taitz document. In 1961, Mombasa was a part of Zanzibar, not the Coast Province of Kenya. The area was later ceded to Kenya.
The Taitz document has sparked a firestorm of controversy over its authenticity.
According to a posting in the Washington Independent, a "source" said the document was nothing more than an alteration of a "certified copy of registration of birth" from an Australian "Bomford" document that also had been posted on the Internet.
WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.
Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.
Complicating the situation is Obama's decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.
WND has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records and adoption records.
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Previous stories:
Obama birth doc update: Kenya sources weigh in
Harry Reid: Not 1 minute for 'phony issue' of birth
Kenyan document ignites firestorm over authenticity
Is this really smoking gun of Obama's Kenyan birth?
New poll shows 'birthers' growing
Guess how many ways to get Hawaii 'birth certificate'
Vanished: Obama exposer disappears off Net
Unveiled! Hawaii's 1961 long-form birth certificates
New doubts revealed in Obama's nativity story
Left rises to squash CNN's Lou Dobbs
Hawaiian newspapers don't prove birthplace
Mr. President, we have a problem
'Birth hospital': Letter for real
Lib talker, Lou Dobbs now asking eligibility questions
Pentagon orders soldier fired for challenging prez
Bombshell: Orders revoked for soldier challenging prez
Now White House joins 'birth hospital' cover-up
Soldier won't serve without proof Obama eligible
Wikipedia says Obama born in Kenya
Just who delivered baby Barack Obama?
Obama's 'birth hospital' in astonishing cover-up
New reports cite Obama's African 'home'
Obama's birth letter: Is this thing for real?
U.S. hospitals 'wouldn't have to disclose Hitler'
News sites swap Obama's birthplace like magic
Obama birth mystery: More than 1 hospital
Hospital won't back Obama birth claim
THE FULL STORY: See listing of more than 200 exclusive WND reports on the eligibility issue
Jerome R. Corsi is a staff reporter for WND. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including his best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and "The Late Great USA." Other books include "Showdown with Nuclear Iran," "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil," which he co-authored with WND columnist Craig. R. Smith, and "Atomic Iran."
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