An Analysis of the Current Revelations of Hawaii’s Dr. Chiyome Fukino to NBC News Regarding Obama’s Place of BirthBy Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
April 12, 2011
Recently we saw an article appear at msnbc.com written by Michael Isikoff, National investigative correspondent for NBC News. The article is dated April 10, 2011, and is entitled, “Ex-Hawaii Official Denounces ‘Ludicrous’ Birther Claims.” It can be read at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42519951/ns/politics-more_politics# I will now analyze the many problems that exist with this “investigative” story. My criticisms are directed at both Dr. Fukino and Mr. Isikoff.
The article states:
"The Hawaiian state health official who personally reviewed Barack Obama's original birth certificate has affirmed again that the document is 'real' and denounced 'conspiracy theorists' in the so-called 'birther' movement for continuing to spread bogus claims about the issue.
'It’s kind of ludicrous at this point,' Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the former director of Hawaii's Department of Health, said in a rare telephone interview with NBC.
Fukino, sounding both exasperated and amused, spoke to a reporter in the aftermath of Donald Trump's statements on the NBC Today show last week questioning whether Obama has a legitimate birth certificate.
Trump, who says he is considering a run for president, repeated his claims on CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday, saying that 'nobody has any information' about the president's birth and that 'if he wasn't born in this country, he shouldn't be president of the United States.'
No matter what state officials release on the issue, the 'birthers' are going to question it, said Fukino. 'They’re going to question the ink on which it was written or say it was fabricated,' said Fukino. 'The whole thing is silly.'”
Here we see nothing but excuses for not releasing Obama’s long-form, hospital generated birth certificate which I will call his “real birth certificate.” This is not to be confused with a short-form Certification of Live Birth (COLB) dated June 2007 which Obama released on the internet in 2008, which does not contain the name of the birth hospital and the names and signatures of the delivery doctor and other witnesses to the birth.
Isikoff states:
"Contacted by NBC, Fukino expanded on previous public statements and made two key points when asked about Trump's recent comments."
Fukino no longer works for the Hawaii Department of Health. Why did Mr. Isikoff not contact the current health department director who overseas the birth certificates in Hawaii? Why do we have to hear from someone who no longer works for Hawaii and no longer has any control over or access to its vital records files? Why can we not hear from the current official who could tell us what is in the file today?
Mr. Isikoff writes:
"The first is that the original so-called 'long form' birth certificate — described by Hawaiian officials as a 'record of live birth' — absolutely exists, located in a bound volume in a file cabinet on the first floor of the state Department of Health. Fukimo said she has personally inspected it — twice. The first time was in late October 2008, during the closing days of the presidential campaign, when the communications director for the state's then Republican governor, Linda Lingle (who appointed Fukino) asked if she could make a public statement in response to claims then circulating on the Internet that Obama was actually born in Kenya. Before she would do so, Fukino said, she wanted to inspect the files — and did so, taking with her the state official in charge of vital records."
Fukino is sure to tell us the exact location of where the real birth certificate was located. She gives us great detail to lend credibility to her story. But she does not tell us who this state official was who accompanied her and whether he or she also saw the real birth certificate. She does not identify any other person who allegedly saw the real birth certificate. One would think that such information would be important and lend credibility to her story. But for some unknown reason, she finds it important to give details of where the birth certificate was located but not that someone other than herself actually saw it.
Isikoff then tells us:
"She found the original birth record, properly numbered, half typed and half handwritten, and signed by the doctor who delivered Obama, located in the files."
Why does Fukino tell us that the real birth certificate showed the doctor on it but she fails to tell us that Obama’s birth occurred in a hospital which is what Obama told the public occurred? After all, she knows how much “birthers” have been demanding to see conclusive proof that Obama was born in Kapi’olani Hospital, the hospital in which Obama says he was born. There would be no violation of any privacy laws for her to simply say that he was born in a hospital, without giving the name of the hospital, just like she said that a doctor delivered Obama and signed the birth certificate. What is suspect is that there were numerous doctors at that time who could have delivered Obama but only two hospitals in which he could have been born, Kapi’olani Hospital or Queens Hospital. In other words, the doctors get lost in the shuffle but the hospitals do not. Just saying that a doctor signed the birth certificate does not open up channels of information that can be independently verified. On the other hand, knowing the birth hospital pins down the place of birth to only two specific locations in which there would be contained medical evidence of the alleged birth there.
The article continues:
"She then put out a public statement asserting to the document's validity. She later put out another public statement in July 2009 — after reviewing the original birth record a second time."
Why did her public statements back then not include the additional information that she is now willing to share with the public? Why has she waited so long to tell us her information?
Isikoff then quotes Fukino:
“'It is real, and no amount of saying it is not, is going to change that,' Fukino said. Moreover, she added, her boss at the time, Lingle — who was backing John McCain for president — would presumably have to be in on any cover up since Fukino made her public comment at the governor's office's request. 'Why would a Republican governor — who was stumping for the other guy — hold out on a big secret?' she asked."
Why is Fukino theorizing about what a Republican Governor would or would not do? Either Hawaii has or does not have the real birth certificate. If they have the document, there is no need to theorize that the Republican Governor would not go along with any conspiracy. Additionally, Fukino does not say that Lingle ever saw the real birth certificate. So how could Lingle be involved in any alleged “cover up” if she was never privy to any information on the issue? By dragging Lingle into the alleged conspiracy makes it look like Lingle had access to some inside information which she would not fabricate because of her opposition position with the Republican Party.
Isikoff continues:
"Her second point — one she made repeatedly in the interview — is that the shorter, computer generated 'certification of live birth' that was obtained by the Obama campaign in 2007 and has since been publicly released is the standard document that anybody requesting their birth certificate from the state of Hawaii would receive from the health department.
The document was distributed to the Obama campaign in 2007 after Obama, at the request of a campaign official, personally signed a Hawaii birth certificate request form downloaded on the Internet, according to a former campaign official who asked for anonymity. (Obama was 'testy' when asked to sign the form but did so anyway to put the issue to rest, the former campaign official said."
Why should a former campaign official who was involved in a presidential election and who can shed light on this national crisis issue want to maintain anonymity? Should concerned Americans not be able to learn who was intimately involved in handling Obama’s birth certificate? After all, what is the harm to anyone in knowing that information?
In 2007, there was no issue regarding Obama’s place of birth. The issue of his place of birth came up in 2008. So how could Obama have been “testy” in having to obtain his birth certificate and for reasons of putting “the issue to rest?” If there was no place of birth issue in 2007 why did Obama allegedly request his Certification of Live Birth (COLB) in 2007 which he did receive and which is dated June 6, 2007 to put to rest a nonexistent issue? Why have we not heard that Obama used that 2007 COLB by sending a copy of it to someone who he thought needed it? We have not heard that he sent a copy of that document to any state election officials to show that he was a “natural born Citizen.” Why did Obama wait a whole year before using the 2007 COLB?
Isikoff writes:
"The certification that the campaign received back —which shows that Obama was born in Honolulu at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 4, 1961 — was based on the content of the original document in state files, Fukino said.
'What he got, everybody got,' said Fukino. 'He put out exactly what everybody gets when they ask for a birth certificate.'"
But Fukino fails to tell us who in the Hawaii Department of Health processed in 2007 Obama’s alleged request for a copy of his birth certificate. She does not tell us that she personally looked at the real birth certificate and used it to prepare the COLB. She is only speculating that someone did that. But she does not tell us who would have done that at that time. As the director of that department, she would have known who her employees were at that time. She could have easily identified the employee who prepared the document so that Mr. Isikoff could have done further “investigative” follow up with that person.
The article continues:
"Hawaiian officials say that the certification is, in fact, only one piece of abundant evidence of Obama's birth in Hawaii. Joshua Wisch, a spokesman for the Hawaii attorney general's office, noted that a public index of vital records, available for inspection in a bound volume at the Health Department's Office of Health Status Monitoring, lists a male child named 'Obama II, Barack Hussein' as having been born in the state."
But this public index only proves that a birth was registered in Hawaii. It is not independent medical evidence of any such birth actually occurring in Hawaii.
The article adds:
"In addition, as Factcheck.org and other media organizations have repeatedly pointed out, both of Honolulu's newspapers, the Honolulu Advertiser on Aug. 13, 1961, and the Honolulu Star Bulletin, on Aug. 14, 1961, both ran birth announcements listing Obama's birth on Aug. 4 of that year."
The newspaper birth announcements are not evidence of a birth in Hawaii. At best they are evidence that the Hawaii Department of Health put those ads in the newspapers based on a birth being registered as having occurred in Hawaii. The announcements are not the product of a medically verified birth in Hawaii. They do not have a direct link to the birth hospital.
The article goes on to say:
"Even Fukino accepts that her comments are not likely to end the matter for the die-hard birthers. Trump and other skeptics have questioned why the original birth certificate has not been released.
But Wisch, the spokesman for the attorney general's office, said state law does not in fact permit the release of "vital records," including an original "record of live birth" — even to the individual whose birth it records.
'It's a Department of Health record and it can't be released to anybody,' he said. Nor do state laws have any provision that authorizes such records to be photocopied, Wisch said. If Obama wanted to personally visit the state health department, he would be permitted to inspect his birth record, Wisch said.
But if he or anybody else wanted a copy of their birth records, they would be told to fill out the appropriate state form and receive back the same computer generated 'certification of live birth' form that everybody else gets — which is exactly what Obama did four years ago."
Fukino attacks anyone who will not be convinced by her story, marginalizing them and casting aspersions toward them. It is rather absurd for Mr. Wisch to contend that someone could not get a certified copy of their own birth certificate, especially the President of the United States. There is no law in Hawaii that so provides. On the contrary, the Hawaii Revised Statutes, Section 338-13(a) states that the department "shall, upon request, furnish an applicant a certified copy of any certificate, or the contents of any certificate, or any part thereof." Paragraph (c) also provides that copies of birth certificates "may be made by photograph, dry copy reproduction, typing, computer printout or other process approved by the director of health." Hence, Hawaii’s statutes directly contradict what Mr. Wisch is telling the public.
To further prove that Mr. Wisch is wrong and/or inventing information, we have seen recent examples of people who were born in Hawaii obtain with little fanfare a certified copy of their original long-form, hospital generated birth certificate. A friend of Miki Booth--who was born in Japan, spent much of her life in Hawaii and ran for Congress in 2010 from the Second District of Oklahoma—has a friend who obtained a copy of his long-form, Certificate of Live Birth in March 2011. See the story here, http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/04/07/exposing-the-birth-certificate-lies-used-to-cover-for-obama/. Also, October 13, 2010, a “Danae” posted on FreeRepublic a copy of her long-form, birth certificate originally issued in 1969, which she obtained by mail from the Hawaii Department of Health on September 28, 2010 after paying a $10.00 fee. She also posted a copy of the receipt that she got for paying the $10.00 fee. An interesting question is -- where is the copy of Obama's receipt for allegedly ordering a copy of his Certification of Live Birth in 2007? Surely the Hawaiian authorities could release a copy of that. Financial transactions of a government are public information.
We know that Governor Abercrombie recently tried to prove that Obama was born in Hawaii. He told the public that he was going to see if he could release Obama’s real birth certificate. Eventually, Abercrombie told the public in a very vague and evasive fashion that he could do no more because of privacy laws. He did say that he found out that Obama’s birth was written down in some state archive. What is strange is that if the long-form birth certificate exists in Obama’s birth file as Fukino is now telling us, why could Abercrombie not tell us the same information that she told us? Why did Abercrombie have to be so evasive and vague about the matter? He could have told us like she did that he went into the health department file and actually saw with his own eyes Obama’s long-form birth certificate and he could have also told us that it contained all the information that Fukino now tells us it contained when she saw it. Abercrombie could have even told us what Fukino left out, i.e., that per the birth certificate, Obama was born in a hospital. Fukino only told us what was in the birth file when she worked there. Abercrombie, as the current Governor, could have told us what is in the file today. That would have been more credible. What is also suspect is that there is no one from Hawaii telling us what is in the health department file today. Rather, Fukino tells us what was in the file in the past. Hearing from someone with official authority tell us what is in the file today would have given the story more credibility given that now Joshua Wisch tells us that today no one can have a copy of the real birth certificate, not even Obama himself, a statement which in itself is incredible and has no basis in law. How convenient can Hawaii get, telling us that at one time the birth certificate was in the file but today no one, not even Obama, is allowed to get a copy of that birth certificate.
What Fukino now tells us is contradicted by former Hawaii election clerk, Tim Adams, who has stated and sworn under oath, that he worked in the Hawaii elections office during the 2008 presidential election and that even though Hawaiian election officials searched for Obama’s long-form, hospital generated birth certificate, none could be found. Rather, what was found was a registration and archive notation which sounds like what Abercrombie has told us.
It is very suspect that Hawaii tells the public what was in Obama’s birth file in the past but does not tell us what is in the file today. Fukino does not even mention that anyone has inspected the file today to see that those same documents are still in it. Why did Mr. Isikoff no reach out to any current officials in the health department for his story? Such a set up is suspicious, for if access to the file is eventually gotten and the alleged real birth certificate is not in there, Fukino can conveniently say that it was there when she looked and she has no control over what happened to it since she does not work there anymore.
What is also suspicious is that Hawaii, using privacy laws as an excuse, will not even release to the public a copy of the documents evidencing someone requested the birth certificate in 2007 and paid for its reproduction costs.
This whole article is also very suspect since we do not have direct quotes from Fukino but rather what Mr. Isikoff summarized to allegedly be her statements. Why would the reporter not provide direct quotes to such important statements?
So where is the grand conspiracy of which the “birthers” are accused? Based on what Dr. Fukino tells us, there is only one person who has actually seen Obama’s real birth certificate and that is she. Hawaii has not identified any other person who has seen it. So Obama’s nativity story is now held together by only one person, Dr. Fukino. That does not sound like much of a conspiracy story.
Why does Obama not want the public to see his real birth certificate or to learn that no real birth certificate exists? The real birth certificate could reveal information that puts into serious doubt that Obama was in fact born in Hawaii. The absence of a real birth certificate could also put into serious doubt his claim that he was actually born in Hawaii. Or the real birth certificate could contain information that is highly embarrassing to Obama and which could put in jeopardy his life narrative that he has put into the public. Whatever could be the truth of Obama’s problem, the American people whom the President serves are entitled to know which one of those truths it is.
Obama’s supporters are proclaiming Dr. Fukino’s recent revelations are the death of the “birthers.” On the contrary, as we can see, what Dr. Fukino has recently said is a far cry from finally resolving the issue concerning Obama’s place of birth. If anything, it just has added more suspicion to the whole story.
Donald Trump needs to continue to press forward in his quest to find out what the truth is.
Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
April 12, 2011
http://puzo1.blogspot.com/
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Mario Apuzzo, Esq.
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