Sheriff Arpaio Won’t Follow Trump’s Lead, Still Claims Obama’s Birth Certificate Is Fake
Even though the the undisputed king of the birther movement tossed in his crown Friday, it appears some of his acolytes aren’t so willing to give up the ghost.
While meeting with a group of 200 Tea Partiers Tuesday, Sheriff Joe Arpaio said that despite Donald Trump’s disavowment of the conspiracy he pushed for five-plus years, he would continue to press the issue. In his mind, the long-form birth certificate that President Obama released in April 2011 is definitely a forged document and he’s still got investigators on the case who are “closer than ever” to revealing the truth.
According to the Arizona Republic, Arpaio told the Surprise Tea Party that Trump’s declaration that Obama is born in the US will not deter him.
“I’m not going to give up, and we’re looking into it,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”
For Arpaio, last week’s statement by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that Obama was born in this country had no weight on his volunteer posse’s work.
“I don’t care where he’s from,” Arpaio told the crowd of about 200. “We are looking at a forged document. Period.”
Arpaio started his investigation in August 2011, months after Trump raised the issue. In April of that year, Obama held a news conference and posted an image of his birth certificate on the White House website.
“I had nothing to do with Trump on the birth certificate,” Arpaio told the crowd. “We did it on our own, because of you guys.”
It should be noted that the group he was speaking to was the one who pressed Arpaio to press the birther issue in August 2011. This occurred days after World Net Daily’s Jerome Corsi spoke to the group and convinced them that the birth certificate was fake. This all happened four months after Trump burst onto the national political stage by embracing birtherism.
One of Arpaio’s supposed lead investigators on the case, Mike Zullo, noted that Trump’s statement Friday might feel like a “punch in the gut” to the movement, but he also felt it was “strategic” for this election, so people should be too disheartened.
Image via Reuters
