Obama had grown incredulous at the overall debate. He had watched as even Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan had been sucked into the discussion of his birthplace, aides said. In his own interview prep sessions, Obama was warned that the “birther” subject might arise – even though it had subsided from the headlines for more than two years since the presidential campaign. Finally, on April 19, in a meeting with White House counsel Bob Bauer, the president asked about the feasibility of getting his long-form birth certificate at last.
“It wasn’t one specific thing” that tipped the scales, a senior administration official said. But Trump was a major factor, by the White House’s own admission, as the real estate mogul’s near-constant interviews extended a discussion that the president found “frivolous.” Last week, it was Obama who made the call to proceed. “He was the driving force,” the official said.
The swift action that followed — in less than 10 days, Obama’s lawyers were able to obtain the legal waivers necessary to bring copies of the certificate back to the White House – raised questions about the timing. Why, for example, did Obama officials wait so long to tamp down rumors that have dogged the president since the 2008 presidential campaign? Why did they release the forms on the very day that Trump is making his first visit to New Hampshire, and during a week when Obama is slated to make other major announcements about his national security team?
According to senior administration officials, the timeframe was the result of Obama’s personal request for a resolution – and reflected his impatience with political frivolity of any kind. At the same time, officials said they wanted to release the paperwork as quickly as possible after receiving it, to pre-empt any further conspiracy theories about whether it had been doctored.
Officials denied there were any more complex political considerations at play. And from a legal standpoint, there appeared to be no question that Wednesday’s announcement was the culmination of several days of secret, intense maneuvering. After years of legal successes – some 70 lawsuits challenging Obama’s birthplace had been dismissed by the courts – the legal team took the extraordinary step of reopening a case that they themselves considered closed.
The process began early in the week of April 18, after Obama raised the subject. White House counsel Bauer reviewed the legal steps necessary to obtain the long-form document, which is not routinely released by authorities in Hawaii.
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