Rep. Stearns says ‘birthers’ have ‘legitimate concerns’

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Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, reiterated on Tuesday concerns over whether President Barack Obama had an authentic birth certificate.

“I am, shall we say, looking at all the evidence,” Stearns said, according to The Hill.

He noted that Republican Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona announced in early March that his investigation into Obama’s birth certificate found the document was most likely a “computer-generated forgery.”

“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.

During a town hall meeting in late February, he questioned whether Obama’s birth certificate was legitimate.

Many of the so-called “birthers” believe there is persuasive evidence that Obama was born in Kenya in 1961 and that his birth certificate was faked in order to make him eligible for the presidency.

In an attempt to quiet the “birther” conspiracies, Obama released his long-form birth certificate in 2011. It confirmed what his other birth certificate released in 2008 said: the president was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961.

[Image via House Republican Conference]