FORGERYGATE: DIANA WEST
Phony document gives birth to a cover-up
Diana West tells story of Sheriff Joe’s men stonewalled by officials in Hawaii
I’m sorry to report that the substantive findings of the latest press conference held by Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse will not be appearing on Fox, on CNN or in the Washington Post. They will not be appearing in the media, period. I guess the nation’s press corps is too busy submitting its work to Obama and Romney campaign officials for “quote approval” – as the New York Times recently confessed in an outbreak of candor – to report on anything.
To remain a free people, a new kind of do-it-yourself journalism is in order. For starters, I recommend every American seek out and watch the two Cold Case Posse press conferences on YouTube. You report and you decide. It’s better that way.
Listening to posse lead investigator Mike Zullo describe the investigation’s itinerary during the posse’s recent trip to Hawaii, a picture of statewide stonewalling emerges. Dead ends guarded by hunkered-down public officials. The same non-answers to the simplest questions. Canned responses. If CNN, Chris Matthews, Obama press secretary Jay Carney, Rachel Maddow, the Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times all didn’t know so much better, a neutral observer might say it sounded like a conspiracy – an agreement between at least two people to do something shifty.
Kapiolani Medical Center was the first stop for Zullo and Detective Brian Mackiewicz. That’s where the birth certificate says Obama was born. Why visit? A retired doctor told the posse that when he was a medical resident at Kapiolani in 1970, it was common practice for a nurse to record by hand the name of every expectant mother as she entered the delivery room. After the register was filled, it was filed in the hospital library archives. Those archives are open to the public – with permission from Kapiolani.
One thing Zullo makes shockingly clear in his recent presentation is the legal flimsiness of a Hawaiian birth certificate under the best of circumstances. A Hawaiian birth certificate is evidence only of information on file with the state; it is not evidence that this information is true. Hawaiian law spells this out by categorizing its state-issued birth certificates as “prima facie” evidence. This makes corroborating evidence – such as infant vaccine records, scene-setting baby pictures or, in this particular case, a delivery-room entry log – essential. There is zero such corroborating evidence in our Obama files. All we have is that posse-disputed online image floating before our eyes.
Now, imagine the laurels that would come to the hospital librarian who brandished a maternity log with Stanley Ann Dunham’s name inscribed in 1961 in the investigators’ faces – the follow-up high-fives on “Good Morning America,” the round of applause on David Letterman’s “Late Show,” maybe even a thank-you note from Barack and Michelle for finally putting Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse on ice.
Instead, the reply to the posse’s request from Kapiolani was: The hospital wasn’t in the business of investigating birth certificates but was in the business of saving lives. (How unrehearsed.) “They all but threw us out,” Zullo recalled.
It was a similar story at the Hawaii Department of Health, where two uniformed policemen were called in after the investigators showed their credentials and asked to speak to state registrar Alvin Onaka. (The cops looked quite irritated at having been called, noted Zullo.) “Mr. Onaka doesn’t speak to the public,” the investigators were told. Translation: Mr. Onaka was hiding in his office. Fortunately, Deputy Attorney General Jill Nagamine deigned to give the posse 15 minutes.
Were the two certified copies of the birth certificate that Obama’s personal attorney is said to have brought back to Washington identical to the image posted at the White House website? Nagamine wouldn’t answer the question, repeatedly invoking a Hawaiian statute she said prevented her from talking about the copy of the White House birth certificate Zullo had with him.
He tried a different tack. Say, for instance, he had to release his driver’s license, Zullo said. And that Nagamine scanned his license into a computer. Before the public could view it, however, she changed or added information. “Is that still my driver’s license?” he asked Nagamine.
Hawaii’s deputy attorney general replied: “But you still have a driver’s license.”
No, you don’t. You have a forgery.
So what do we have in Hawaii – and in the White House?
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