{"slug":"trump-pre-presidency-birther-campaign-obama","title":"Birther Campaign: Five-Year Campaign Questioning Obama's U.S. Birth, Racist Delegitimization","date":"2011-03-23","lastUpdated":"2016-09-16","description":"From 2011 through 2016, Trump was the most prominent promoter of the false claim that President Barack Obama had not been born in the United States and was therefore constitutionally ineligible to be president. Trump called for investigation of Obama's birth certificate, claimed he had sent investigators to Hawaii, asserted the certificate was a forgery, and made the birther conspiracy theory central to his public identity. In September 2016, two months before the presidential election, Trump briefly acknowledged Obama was born in the United States — while falsely attributing the birther claim to Hillary Clinton.","summary":"The birther conspiracy theory — the claim that Obama was born in Kenya or elsewhere outside the U.S. — had no factual basis. Hawaii state officials repeatedly confirmed the birth certificate's authenticity. Obama released both a short-form and long-form birth certificate. Federal courts dismissed challenges to Obama's eligibility. The theory persisted in certain quarters as a form of racial delegitimization of the first Black president. Trump became its most prominent mainstream advocate, using it to build his political profile before his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump's 2016 acknowledgment that Obama was born in the U.S. came without apology and included the false claim that Clinton had started the birther controversy.","category":"civil-rights","severity":"major","ongoing":false,"sources":[{"url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/politics/donald-trump-obama-birther.html","title":"Trump Gives Up a Lie But Refuses to Repent","publisher":"The New York Times"},{"url":"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-birther-obama-2011-2016/2016/09/16/story.html","title":"Trump's years of birtherism: A history of a racist lie","publisher":"The Washington Post"},{"url":"https://apnews.com/article/trump-birther-obama-birth-certificate-racist","title":"Trump's birther campaign: timeline and racial context","publisher":"The Associated Press"},{"url":"https://factcheck.org/2016/09/trumps-birther-lie/","title":"Trump's Birther Lie","publisher":"FactCheck.org"}],"draft":false,"status":"published","tags":["birther","Obama","racism","pre-presidency","civil-rights","disinformation","delegitimization"],"relatedEntries":[],"timeline":[{"date":"2011-03-23","title":"Trump emerges as leading birther — demands birth certificate on TV","summary":"Trump begins making public claims questioning Obama's birthplace on television, calling for Obama to release his birth certificate. He becomes the most prominent mainstream advocate for the birther conspiracy theory, using appearances on Fox News and other outlets to advance the claim."},{"date":"2011-04-27","title":"Obama releases long-form birth certificate — Trump questions authenticity","summary":"Under sustained political pressure, Obama releases his long-form birth certificate from Hawaii. Trump claims credit for pressing the issue. He then begins questioning the certificate's authenticity, claiming at various points that it might be a forgery. Hawaii state officials confirm its authenticity."},{"date":"2012-10-01","title":"Trump claims investigators in Hawaii found something — never disclosed","summary":"Trump states in a television interview that he had sent investigators to Hawaii and that 'they cannot believe what they're finding.' He never discloses what his investigators found. No evidence surfaces to support any finding inconsistent with Obama's Hawaiian birth."},{"date":"2013-08-01","title":"Trump tweets Obama not born in U.S.","summary":"Trump tweets that Obama was not born in the United States. This is one of many repeated assertions of the birther claim made across multiple years. The claims are made without evidence and contradict the confirmed documentary record."},{"date":"2016-09-16","title":"Trump retracts — acknowledges Obama born in U.S., falsely blames Clinton","summary":"At a press event, Trump briefly acknowledges Obama was born in the United States. He does not apologize. He claims, falsely, that Hillary Clinton started the birther controversy. Fact-checkers find no evidence for this claim. The retraction is widely seen as tactical, made as Trump faced questions about the issue during the presidential campaign."}],"location":{"name":"New York, NY / United States","lat":40.7128,"lng":-74.006},"custom":{"era":"pre-presidency","posture":"reported","warCrimeClassification":"enabling","internationalLaw":[],"iccRelevance":false,"victims":"President Barack Obama, who was subjected to a sustained public campaign questioning the legitimacy of his presidency based on false claims with racial undertones; Black Americans who witnessed the first Black president subjected to an unprecedented delegitimization campaign; the standard of political discourse that requires factual basis for accusations against officeholders","structuredPerpetrators":[{"name":"Donald Trump","role":"Real estate developer and television personality; principal public advocate for birther conspiracy theory 2011-2016; claimed to have sent investigators to Hawaii; called birth certificate a forgery after its release; retracted without apology in September 2016 while falsely attributing the theory to Clinton","institution":"Trump Organization / private"}],"updateLog":[{"date":"2016-09-16","summary":"Based on September 2016 retraction and campaign-era coverage."}]}}