Investigator: Foreigners bought Hawaii birth certificates

'A Mafia operation was run in the early infancy of the state'

By Bob Unruh who joined WND in 2006 after spending nearly three decades writing on a wide range of issues for several Upper Midwest newspapers and the Associated Press. Sports, tornadoes, homicidal survivalists, and legislative battles all fell within his bailiwick. His scenic photography has been used commercially, and he sometimes plays in a church worship band.

The lead investigator for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse – which already has found probable cause that Barack Obama’s publicly released birth certificate is a forgery – says any Hawaii documentation for Obama’s birth that exists would probably be of little value.

Mike Zullo, a retired New Jersey detective now heading Arpaio’s volunteer investigative team, explained in an interview that at the time of Obama’s birth during the state’s early years, Hawaii birth documentation routinely was purchased by foreigners for children not born in the state.

Arpaio’s investigation was launched last September after constituents came to the sheriff with their concern that Obama was ineligible for the presidency and would perpetrate a fraud by placing his name on the state’s ballot.

Zullo’s comments came in an interview with Tea Party Power Hour host Mark Gillar.

Gillar described the process in the 1960s: Foreign nationals, primarily from Japan, would fly to Hawaii and buy a birth registration for their son or daughter, not with the goal of one day having them become president, but to obtain the benefits of being a U.S. citizen.

Zullo said that when he was in Hawaii last month following up on leads, he talked to older locals who “informed us about a syndicate operation, a Mafia operation if you will, being run in the early infancy of the state of Hawaii where birth certificates were being sold to Japanese refugees on a black market basis.”

At that time, Japan was still undergoing post-war reconstruction while America was an established superpower.

Zullo said there was a business in Hawaii in “birth certificates … for profit.”

Obama released an image of a Hawaiian birth certificate last year as “proof positive” of his birth in the U.S. and “natural born” citizenship, a constitutional requirement for the presidency.

There have been numerous challenges to Obama’s eligibility. Some say that regardless of where he was born, he isn’t qualified because the Founding Fathers understood a natural-born citizen to be the offspring of two U.S. citizens. Obama’s father was a foreign national who only attended school in the U.S.

Zullo also debunked again the contention that 1961 newspaper birth announcements prove anything. He argued the listings were generated automatically by the state and delivered for publication based on the registration of any child with the state.

“Anybody that is hanging their hat on a newspaper entry to prove … Barack Obama [was] born in the state of Hawaii doesn’t know what they’re talking about,” he said.

The births of Japanese children whose parents purchased Hawaii birth certificates also would be listed in the papers, he explained.

During that time period, Japanese parents would fly to Hawaii so their children, born in Japan, could have the benefits of American citizenship, he said.

For that reason, he said, Obama can’t claim that a Hawaii birth certificate is proof he was born in the state.

The interview also addressed unanswered questions about the “discovery” of the Obama birth documentation. Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, when elected, promised to track down the documentation to put to rest the arguments over Obama’s birth location and eligibility.

The governor eventually concluded, in January 2011, that there was something “written” in state records, but he was unable to produce any documents to the public.

Then, when Obama requested a certified copy of the original documentation three months later, state officials reportedly produced the documentation.

Abercrombie is no longer eager to address the issue.

Earlier this week, WND tried to find out what happened to the governor’s self-initiated research into Obama’s birth documentation.

Initially, Abercrombie spokeswoman Donalyn Delacruz told WND she was happy to help with questions – until she found out the subject.

When WND asked in an email for an explanation of why Abercrombie’s investigation could not turn up the documentation, she refused to answer.

“What news organization are you with?” she demanded. “We get frequent ‘birther’ questions and this would fall in that category.”

Subsequently, she refused to respond to email questions.

When WND called, a receptionist in the office responded to the same inquiry with “That’s been done” – apparently meaning president had released the birth certification image. But she promised to take a message and have someone call back.

No one did.

WND had questions about the anomalous results: The governor’s stated inability to find the documentation and the state agency’s later simple recovery and alleged duplication of the same record.

It was shortly after his election that Abercrombie vowed to end the questions from those who doubted Obama’s status as a “natural born citizen.”

Stated Abercrombie then: “We’ll do what we can as quickly as we can to make it inevitable that only those who wish the president ill, only the ones with a political agenda, will be the ones doing this kind of thing.

“The president is entitled to the respect of his office and he’s entitled to have his mother and father respected,” he said.

He said he was instructing his attorney general and the chief of the state’s health agency to look at what legal avenues could be used to release information.

“This is a transparent state in terms of our communication with one another,” Abercrombie said. “This is the Aloha state. We care for each other, we look out for each other, we’re family.”

He told CNN in that interview that he would pursue the information regardless of the feelings of the White House.

“It’s a matter of principle with me. I knew his mom and dad. I was here when he was born. Anybody who wants to ask a question honestly could have had their answer already,” he announced.

Obama’s narrative states that he was born Aug. 4, 1961, at Kapiolani Hospital in Honolulu.

However, after a flurry of high-profile media interviews in which he blasted “birthers,” Abercrombie suddenly went silent even though polls reveal nearly six on 10 doubt Obama’s own eligibility story.

He told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser about Obama’s documentation: “It actually exists in the archives, written down.” The London Daily Mail, however, noted Abercrombie “suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health.”

Yet, when Obama wanted the records, the state instantly waived a ban on reproducing long-form birth certificates and copies were produced to be delivered to Judith Corley, a private attorney.

WND continues to report on multiple legal challenges to Obama over his 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 Obama actually was 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.

Further, others contend it’s impossible for him to be considered a “natural born citizen” as his father was a foreign national.