Sheriff Joe says he has evidence Obama birth certificate could be forgery

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday he wants Congress to investigate President Obama's birth certificate.

Arpaio, the Arizona lawman who bills himself as the “America's toughest sheriff,” held a press conference on Thursday to highlight his view that the long-form birth certificate released by the White House last year could be a “computer-generated forgery” instead of a scan of an original 1961 paper document.

He wants lawmakers to look into whether the president's staff or Hawaii public officials aided in the creation of falsified documents.

But in calling for the inquiry, Arpaio is bringing attention in an election year to an issue that many Republicans would like to avoid.

There has been little enthusiasm for an investigation into Obama’s birthplace on Capitol Hill, and Republican presidential candidates have steered clear of the controversy. Reality television host Donald Trump repeatedly demanded Obama release the document while flirting with his own White House bid.

There is overwhelming evidence that the president was born in Hawaii and is a United States citizen, but members of the "birther" movement have long disputed the president's nationality.

Critics of Arpaio's report have suggested that the sheriff is using the issue to help generate support for his reelection campaign, a charge the sheriff has denied.

But in a statement released to the media Thursday, Arpaio said he "developed probable cause to believe" the president's long-form birth certificate and Selective Service cards were forgeries.

Videos released by Arpaio claims to demonstrate "features and anomalies observed on the Obama long-form birth certificate were inconsistent with features produced when a paper document is scanned, even if the scan of the paper document had been enhanced by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and optimized."

Arpaio's report also questions the authenticity of the Hawaii Department of Health Registrar's name and date stamp on the document released by the White House

"That we were able to cast reasonable suspicions on the authenticity of the Registrar stamps was especially disturbing, since these stamp imprints are designed to provide government authentication to the document itself," said Mike Zullo, an investigator for Arpaio's "Cold Case Posse."

The sheriff went on to demand the release of original copies of the president's records and suggested a congressional investigation into the president's birth.

"As I said at the beginning of the investigation," Arpaio said, "the president can put all this to rest quite easily. All he has to do is demand the Hawaii Department of Health release to the American public and to a panel of certified court-authorized forensic examiners all original 1961 paper, microfilm, and computer birth records the Hawaii Department of Health has in its possession."

Some Republicans worry the repeated questions about Obama’s birthplace risk hurting their party in a presidential election.

GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman signaled his desire to put an end to the issue late last year, saying, “The president was born in the United States. End of conversation."

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