Rep. Stearns questions whether Obama's birth certificate is legitimate

During a meeting with constituents, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) openly wondered whether the birth certificate produced by President Barack Obama was real or a forgery.

"All I can tell you is that the general consensus is that he has produced a birth certificate," he said, according to Think Progress. "The question is, is it legitimate? That’s where we stand now. I’ve seen a copy of it on television. But you know the Governor of Hawaii couldn’t get what he felt was an original of the birth certificate. He tried to do it and gave up on it."

"So I think what Obama’s showing is a facsimile, but I think that debate probably is not enough, shall we say, just to impeach him," Stearns continued. "We’re going to have an election in five or six months so we can change the course of history by electing someone other than Obama. That’s what elections are all about. If we started impeachment this time of year, very difficult in terms of time and strength."

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.

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.” Obama poked fun at the investigation, using it to sell coffee mugs.