Cantor says he has ‘full confidence’ in Stearns despite 'birther' flap

By Ben Geman - 03/21/12 04:18 PM ET

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said he has “full confidence” in Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the GOP’s point person in the Solyndra probe, despite Stearns’s recent remark that he’s not certain whether President Obama’s birth certificate is legitimate.

“I think Cliff Stearns does a good job with the chairmanship of his subcommittee,” Cantor told The Hill in the Capitol Wednesday. “He has my full confidence.”

Cantor was responding to a question about whether it's appropriate to have someone who has questioned Obama's birth certificate leading a probe of the White House.

The GOP leader, in the very brief interview, made clear that he’s not among the people that question the president’s citizenship. “Let’s just get it straight ... I believe the president is an American citizen, so that question I can dispense with,” Cantor said.

Stearns heads the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, which is part of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. He is leading the GOP probe of Solyndra, the California solar panel company that went belly-up last September after receiving a $535 million Energy Department loan guarantee in 2009.

The probe is focusing heavily on White House involvement with the loan guarantee, and has included a November subpoena for White House documents and many other inquiries.

Stearns said Tuesday that he’s not yet convinced Obama’s birth certificate is legitimate, noting he is “looking at all the evidence.”

“I think we are just going to hold in abeyance a final decision until we hear, you know, some of these people seem to have legitimate concerns, so I don’t think it is unreasonable just to see what they have to say,” Stearns said. He also questioned the birth certificate at a meeting with constituents in late February.

Overwhelming evidence shows that Obama was born in Hawaii and is a U.S. citizen, but members of what has been called the "birther" movement have continued to dispute his nationality.

In April 2011, the White House released Obama's long-form birth certificate to the public, hoping to put the matter to bed for good.

But the issue has popped back up repeatedly — most recently in early March, when Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he had evidence the document was a fake.