WASHINGTON, D.C.---The question of Barack Obama's citizenship has plagued the president since the earliest days of his presidency, Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he has the answer.
The often embattled, tough as nails Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona has been on a mission of late to uncover the truth regarding Obama's citizenship and right to hold the nation's highest office.
The law enforcement agent's quest began after being approached to investigate the facts surrounding Barack Obama's birth by the Patriot Action Network, armed with 100,000 petitions asking that Arpaio investigate the matter.
Arpaio is not the first high profile public figure to openly question the president on his American citizenship. World renown business mogul and on again off again presidential candidate Donald Trump brought the question of Obama's right to hold office to the forefront through a series of scathing and highly publicized challenges for the President to come forth with proof of his nationality in the form of an official birth certificate.
Officially, Barack Obama states that he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961 at Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital to mother, Stanley Ann Dunham and father, Barack Obama, Sr, who hailed from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya.
According to White House statements, Barack Obama was conceived while his father was in Hawaii on an educational visa after meeting Dunham in a Russian class at the University of Hawaii.
That declaration has come under fire, however, by "birthers" concerned that Obama may have been less than forthcoming regarding the actual circumstances of his birth and, as a result, was unlawfully elected.
These allegations were fueled after former Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams signed a sworn affidavit stating that he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and that neither Queens Medical Center nor Kapi’olani Medical Center, both located in Honolulu, had any record of any child by that name having been born in either of their medical facilities.
After a great deal of controversy regarding the issue, the White House took steps toward silencing the issue by releasing what it said was an official transcript of the president's birth certificate, issued by the state of Hawaii.
The document was quickly dissected by experts to determine whether or not the certificate of live birth presented by the White House was a legitimate birth record or a carefully crafted forgery.
The results, which proved inconclusive according to many experts in document examination, only fueled the debate. Suspicions reached a fever pitch, however, after other experts declared the document supplied by the White House to be a poorly constructed fraud.
Sheriff Arpaio, known for his no-nonsense approach to law enforcement and upholding the laws of the state in which he protects, initially had no opinion on the validity of the president's nationality but agreed to look into the matter further.
On February 7, Arpaio announced that he and his team of legal experts has concluded his investigation on the matter and a news conference is slated for March 1 to declare the panel's findings.
While Arpaio would not shed light on the details of his findings, he did state that the results of his investigation would be "shocking" to many.
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