Senate candidate: My proposed federal birther office 'not about Obama'

Republican Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra on Wednesday denied that his proposed federal so-called "birther" office had anything to do with President Barack Obama.

He recently told a Michigan tea party group that there should be an office established in Washington, D.C. that ensures presidential candidates meet the minimum qualifications to be President of the United States.

"I fill out hundreds of pages of documents to verify each and every contribution that comes to my campaign," Hoekstra explained to CNN's Brooke Baldwin on Wednesday. "I have to fill out pages and pages that list every asset that I own. And you would think that the United States of America could go through a very simple process that said, hey, I want to run for president and there would just be a person that would say, OK, here are the minimum qualifications. There's an age requirement. There's a birth requirement."

Many of the so-called “birthers” believe Obama was born in Kenya in 1961 and that his birth certificate was faked in order to make him eligible for the presidency. But Hoekstra denied being a "birther" himself.

"This has nothing to do so about Barack Obama," Hoekstra said. "This has nothing to do about the past. This is all looking forward and saying we have requirements in place."

Watch video, courtesy of CNN, below: