Saturday, September 5, 2009

Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate alleged in O.C. lawsuit

Questions surround the authenticity of the document.

By MARTIN WISCKOL
The Orange County Register

A document purported to be a copy of President Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate was filed with the federal court in Santa Ana on Friday by Orly Taitz, the Mission Viejo attorney suing to have Obama removed from office. She alleges that he wasn’t born in the United States.

However, the authenticity of the document is far from certain. Hawaii’s chief public health officer has said he’s examined pertinent documents and confirmed Obama’s birth there. The Annenberg Public Policy Institute also investigated Obama’s U.S. birth documents and determined them to be authentic and valid.

Additionally, another court filing by Taitz, which she claimed was documentation of Obama’s birth registration, has been called a forgery by experts. Taitz’s case has been plagued by incomplete paperwork, and the earlier birth registration document was thrown out by a judge on technical grounds.

A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday to address the status of that earlier document as well as Taitz’s motion to have judge a removed from the case and to have two of her clients removed from the case. The status of latest birth document may also be addressed.

According to Taitz’s Friday filing, a U.S. citizen named Lucas Daniel Smith, a 29-year-old Iowan, went to Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya on Feb. 19 and paid “a cash consideration to a Kenyan military officer on duty to look the other way, while I obtained the copy of the birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama.â€