Obama Birth Certificate: Missouri Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler Expresses Doubt

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (right) stands behind House Speaker John Boehner at a press conference.

A congresswoman from Missouri expressed doubt over Obama's birth certificate, becoming the second Republican elected official this week to make comments sympathetic to the birther movement.

U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler answered a question about Obama's birth certificate from a man who identified himself as a veteran during a town hall meeting Thursday. Hartzler -- who was filmed by the group Show Me Progress -- said she had doubts and asked why Obama did not release his birth certificate sooner.

"You know, I have a lot of doubts about all that. But I don't know, I haven't seen it," Hartzler said. "I'm just at the same place you are on that. You read this, you read that. But I don't understand why he didn't show that right away. I mean, if someone asked for my birth certificate, I'd get my baby book and hand it out and say 'Here it is,' so I don't know."

The audience member pressed Hartzler on the issue, bringing up Joe Arpaio and his "posse." Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, has researched Obama's birth certificate and his Selective Service records and claimed they could be forgeries.

Hartzler suggested the issue could be settled in the courts, but noted the quickest way to resolve the issue of Obama's citizenship is through the November election, with doubters voting Obama out at that time.

In an interview with the Sedalia Democrat following the town hall, Hartzler continued express doubt over the birth certificate released by the White House last year:

When asked to clarify her doubts during press availability after the event, Hartzler said: "I have doubts that it is really his real birth certificate, and I think a lot of Americans do, but they claim it is, so we are just going to go with that."

Hartzler declined to say whether she believes Obama is a U.S. citizen, calling the issue "irrelevant" and said people should "focus attention on his specific policies and not his birth certificate."

"I have plenty of disagreements with his policies," she said.

Hartzler's comment came the same day New Jersey Assemblyman Anthony Bucco (R-Boonton) told The Huffington Post he had doubts over Obama's birth certificate and citizenship.

Bucco had attended a speech organized by the tea party and the Morris County Republican Party featuring author Jerome Corsi, who discussed his new book and said that Obama was not born in the U.S. Bucco said Corsi's speech raised questions that would have to be settled by a "higher authority."

Last week, the Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives, where Hartzler served in the 1990s, passed a bill requiring presidential candidates to present a birth certificate to the Missouri secretary of state to qualify for the ballot. Republican sponsors of the bill denied they were racist during debate on the House floor.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct the name of Show Me Progress and to clarify that Hartzler served in the Missouri House of Representatives in the 1990s.

Watch the video of Hartzler above.

Also on HuffPost:

Comments

[spaceguy2012]

07:32 PM on 04/19/2012

Obama is gone in a few months so this is all irrelevant anyhow. I just hope the judicial system does the right thing and prosecutes him. Bye bye Obama.

[miss redhead]

01:19 AM on 11/30/2012

Obama isn't gone, is he? The idiocy IS irrelevant & thinly-disguised bigotry--it has nothing to do with where Obama was born. It is the color of his skin, but the people ranting about this dead issue don't want to come right out & say that. If the judicial system prosecutes anyone, it should be Bush for using 9-11 as an excuse to lie our nation into a war (where were those WMD?) that's cost thousands of American lives & billions of dollars. He & Cheney should be tried for perjury, war crimes, or treason-multiple choice. Better a President with a black skin than a black heart!!!

[DrJimmy]

03:59 PM on 04/19/2012

I have doubts that Vicky is a woman.....i have no proof....but my gut is telling me something

[cemq]

03:49 PM on 04/18/2012

Why are we even talking about this Vicky Hartzler woman? Who cares what she thinks? She's just another of these tea partier crazys who just can't stand the fact that an African American had the gall to run for President and even worse (for her) win!

This is and a fake issue. Let it go! By the way Ms. Hartzler, your rock is calling. It wants you to go back and crawl under it.

[NewDem08]

11:14 AM on 04/11/2012

Gee, what a surprise - from the same state that gave us Rush Limbaugh, and a House Speaker who has installed a bust of Limbaugh in the state's Hall of Fame.

Since I live in St. Louis, safely settled in a neighborhood recognized for its educated, liberal and diverse population, I sometimes forget about the idiocy in the rest of the state.

Thank God for Senator Claire McCaskill - our only hope.

[Dopster]

12:23 PM on 04/10/2012

Is ignorance REALLY bliss?

[land2341]

10:14 AM on 04/18/2012

You know, I've sometimes wondered this. The anger that comes from knowing what's going on, and the profound ignornce of others, gets tiring at times. I watch people who revel in their ignorant certainty of politics and religion and wonder: is it simply easier to be dumb and devoted?

It must be, but I just can't seem to quit the habit of thinking.

[Dopster]

11:35 AM on 04/18/2012

I agree. It gets SO frustrating, watching the out and out lies that the ignorant seem to swallow unhesitatingly!

[laserbabe]

01:33 AM on 04/10/2012

OK, Dems and anyone disgusted enough with the repubs to vote against them: we need a full 20% margin next election, to overcome on-site suppression, issuance of provisional ballots (that are rarely if ever counted), and machine tweaking like we saw in florida in 2000 and 2004. So put your outrage where it belongs and get people registered to vote, have them confirm their registrations 45 days before the election to make sure they haven't been "purged," and make sure your family, friends and neighbors can and do get to the polls. You can see by every poll that about half of americans still think the Flintstones is a documentary. Get out the vote!

[Tom Iarossi]

11:51 PM on 04/09/2012

A few tidbits for the birfers - Willard's father George was born in Mexico. Barry Goldwater was born in Phoenix three years before Arizona became a state. John McCain was born in Panama. All three ran for President or at least the GOP nomination. None ever had their citizenship questioned. Why the difference?

Oh yeah.

[Charlie Feather]

02:34 AM on 04/10/2012

John McCain's eligibility was contested by the Democrats and was thoroughly investigated by the Senate. It required a resolution from the US Senate to permit him to run for president. Didn’t you follow that back in 2008?

But there was no such vetting for Obama. None!

Yeah! Why the difference?

[Tom Iarossi]

08:18 AM on 04/10/2012

It was neither contested by the Democrats nor "thoroughly investigated" by the Senate, and no resolution was required (they have no legal standing anyway). A newspaper questioned his eligibility, and Leahy and McGaskill introduced a resolution that the sense of the Senate was that he was a natural-born citizen. McGaskill said "“It is silly for anyone to argue that Senator McCain is not eligible to become president”.

And no vetting of Obama? He's been "investigated" by every tin-foil-hat wearing nut ball int he universe, all of whom deny documented, certified, sworn evidence of his birth in Hawaii. And does anyone really think he'd be cleared at the highest levels possible if he was some kind of commie socialist muslim terrorist plant?

[bdaved]

03:35 PM on 04/10/2012

Oh nonsense. You have no idea what you're talking about. Senator McCain's eligibility wasn't "contested by the Democrats", there was no investigation of his eligibility, thorough or otherwise, by the Senate, and the Senate's non-binding resolution did nothing but express the collective opinion of the Senate. Senator McCain never produced public proof of his eligibility.
President Obama, on the other hand, publicly displayed a birth certificate, the same kind of document any American could use for any legal purpose of demonstrating proof of birth, before he was even nominated. No other candidate has ever done so much.

[laserbabe]

11:21 PM on 04/09/2012

And vicky, if you got it out and said, here it is, and we all called you a liar and said it was obviously a fake, and you dismissed us as total conspiracy nuts and thought the issue would go away, but it wouldn't, because we were conspiracy nuts, so you got the state where you were born to validate it and we called the state a liar, and you showed us the newspapers on the day you were born, and you said they had been planning this for all the years, including back to the day you were born, what would you say? It is disgraceful that someone of your ilk could be elected.

[hawaiianstile]

05:46 PM on 04/09/2012

he was borne in Hawai'i. if you really want to DQ him you have to admit to the FACT that Hawai'i is not a state. but ohhh cant do that or we might have a better chance of gaining freedom from american occupation. america, lying to the world since .... well since EVER i guess huh.

[land2341]

10:16 AM on 04/18/2012

Yeah, this IS an issue. If I were a native Hawaiian, given the state of the union I'd be tempted to secede. It is an illegally occupied territory. I agree. But, you have to wonder who would take it over if they left the US. I sincerely doubt they would be left alone to prosper.

[hawaiianstile]

02:23 PM on 04/18/2012

of course you doubt it, you have been conditioned your whole life to doubt it. but the fact is america is the only one who would do the deed. there are procedures in place for an occupied country to regain its freedom, and it addresses such concerns. literally all that is needed is for the laws that exist to be followed for the first time in over a bloody century. and given americas numerous enemies, it is arguable we would considerably safer to be short of them. after all they made us a target for the Japanese in pearl harbor, thank god the Japanese have some honor in war and attacked only the illegally erected military base in pearl harbor. if they were more like america they might have just vaporized the whole island and every innocent man woman and child thereon.

[outlawjames8]

05:19 PM on 04/09/2012

There was a time when blacks had to be prepared to show their papers or risk being beaten and jailed. It appears that the G0tp still feel that is still the rule of the day.

[looneydoone]

07:29 PM on 04/09/2012

"Conservative values" ? Invite a white nationalist leader to address the GOPTP 2012 conference,
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cpac-set-host-white-nationalist-leader

[outlawjames8]

07:40 PM on 04/09/2012

Good info,I bookmarked. Thanx!

[Will737]

04:53 PM on 04/09/2012

True these Birthers are clinically insane (ie.,completely detached from reality) when it comes to Obama. But they are not really a danger to themselves and maybe not even to others on account of the fact that they are thankfully completely impotent. Of the "cases" that they have brought, they have lost all of them. They are zero for over 200 "cases brought. Maybe we ought to just let them be used for the suckers by Vicky Hartzler and the other Tea Party people.

Frankly the greater danger just today would seem to be Wes Keller, from Alaska. He is some lunatic Republican state rep. in Alaska who is attacking the Girl Scouts (for god's sake) because he thinks that they are in cahoots with Planned Parenthood.. Where is he from, you asked? Yah, you guessed it. He's from Wasilla. It must be something in the water.

[outlawjames8]

05:23 PM on 04/09/2012

Tainted bear meat. The Girl Scouts, really?Has a week gone by in the last 3 years without Repugnicants tripping over themselves to be dumber than a 5th grader? The fact that they keep getting elected is really telling.

[Scallywag13]

03:40 PM on 04/09/2012

How is this even an issue?

Obama was born in 1961, Hawaii became a state in 1963.

He is not eligible to be the president.

[progressiveG]

03:47 PM on 04/09/2012

You know thats not true, stop trying to upset people.

[Scallywag13]

03:55 PM on 04/09/2012

I will not

[outlawjames8]

05:24 PM on 04/09/2012

Truth and facts, like garlic to a vampire.

[bdaved]

03:58 PM on 04/09/2012

Best one yet!

[lman2004y]

03:38 PM on 04/09/2012

Instead of making his legitimacy a joke why didn't he release all his records years ago? Is the US supposed to get the history and background of the leader of the free world only from a book he himself supposedly wrote, just because he says so? Whose employer would accept that in leiu of documentation? Certainly not any of the Fortune 500 companies whose outcomes may be
affected by his policies. And don't even try to claim that other Fake certificate of live birth with No Information and No Raised Seal on it was real. After fighting releasing a Real raised Seal BC for 3 years at a cost of almost 2 Million $$$$ and claiming that was his real Raised Seal BC with No Information on it. Then Obama comes out with a Fraudulent Computer Generated Pdf file that Sheriff Joe Arpaio exposed as a Clear Forgery. This is America, not some corner Grocery store.

[eenp718]

03:53 PM on 04/09/2012

Everything was submitted well before the primaries. These people just refuse to accept a non-white man, their coded refusal. The phony photo-shopped BC, on a UTAH duplicate was debunked 4 years ago. There is no need for him to keep answering questions, asked & answered. These all settled before he actually ran.

[jon lanai]

04:28 PM on 04/09/2012

Both my children were born at Kapiolani, where Obama was born, and they both have the same Certificate of Live Birth as the President. That's what you get here. It's a legal document accepted by both state AND federal governments as well as private organizations like Little League.

[MoscowMoo]

05:28 PM on 04/09/2012

Yeah, well, I guess that just proves that all of the hours and hours the birthers put into their "supposed" research is still not equal to the amount of knowledge that mere Little League volunteers possess.

[Charlie Feather]

03:04 AM on 04/10/2012

Well, first he was born at Queen’s Medical Center, and then when no record of his birth could be produced, it was changed to Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital.

[eenp718]

03:30 PM on 04/09/2012

These sorry non-performers try to use anything they can, to make themselves tough, on the president, when in actuality, make themselves appear foolish and without knowledge. Well known knowledge that the NSA, FBI, J.McCain's & H. Clintons campaigns, would've discovered years ago. The wish to continue the birther suspicion for political recognition is sad, but the coded racism involved, IS NOT hidden bt the birther comments.

[lman2004y]

03:25 PM on 04/09/2012

In May, 2010, the White House instructed the 'mainstream media' NOT to report what they may discover concerning fraudulent statements on Barack Obama's resume.

The White House directive was issued as part of a deal struck between the Office of the President and reporters of the mainstream media.

In exchange for being given unprecedented access to Barack Obama, reporters would promise not to report 'certain matters' they may discover while covering the President.
(PRAYING TO ALLAH, PERHAPS?)

Why would any true journalist who is worth his/her salt agree to such a scheme?

BECAUSE, some reporters who cover the White House want to write books about Obama....

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/white-house-to-media-don-t-report-what-you-discover

[Scallywag13]

03:38 PM on 04/09/2012

I'd rather he pray to Neil DeGrasse Tyson...

[MoscowMoo]

03:40 PM on 04/09/2012

So you think the White House controls the media, and all Obama has to do is "instruct the mainstream media" on what they are allowed to report and what they are not, eh?

Using your logic, then, we are to assume that the reason the media was focused 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week on Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinski was because Bill Clinton wanted them to? Or is your theory that he didn't KNOW that the president controls the media and, therefore, it never occurred to him to just pick up the phone that is the presidential direct line to the 'mainstream media' and instruct them NOT to report on his affair with Lewinski?