"I think unfortunately the House is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue," he said. "The original Congress, when his eligibility came up, should have looked into it and they didn't. I'm not sure how we fix it."
Farenthold posed his own hypothetical solution: "If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn't be convicted."
Though the White House published Obama's long-form birth certificate in April 2011, Farenthold is not alone in his frustration. Last year's Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a third of self-identified Republicans and conservatives suspected or believed that the president was born outside the United States. Though interest in the topic comes in waves, Donald Trump, who never left the issue, attempted to revive the campaign against Obama's legitimacy as an American-born citizen in an interview with ABC's "This Week."
“Some people say that was not his birth certificate. I’m saying I don’t know,” Trump said.
At a town hall meeting last Thursday, Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) was questioned on Obama's birth by a constituent who called herself the "birther princess." Citing Obama's reelection, Mullin said "we lost that argument November 6," noting her question centered around "a dead issue."
Conservative leaders like Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and Jeff Flake have long encouraged Republicans to move past the birther issue. Palin in particular has called it "distracting" and annoying." In early 2011, the accusations were a source of friction between the Republican Party, who mostly wanted to forget the issue, and the tea party, which didn't.
The White House has denied the allegations repeatedly, with press secretary Jay Carney calling it a "ridiculous distraction" from more pressing concerns.
