News

Sheriff Joe Arpaio ‘not going to give up’ on Obama birth certificate

by Jesse Byrnes - 09/21/16 9:45 AM ET

Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he isn’t ready to drop questions about President Obama’s birthplace despite Donald Trump declaring the issue settled.

“I’m not going to give up, and we’re looking into it,” the Maricopa County sheriff told the Surprise Tea Party Patriots on Tuesday, according to The Arizona Republic. “I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”

{mosads}“I don’t care where he’s from,” Arpaio continued. “We are looking at a forged document. Period.”

Arpaio, a prominent supporter of Trump, has long questioned the authenticity of Obama’s long-form birth certificate. The White House released the document in 2011, after requesting it from the state of Hawaii, to quiet Trump and other longtime skeptics of Obama’s citizenship.

On Tuesday, Arpaio told the local Tea Party group that asked him to investigate the birth certificate in August 2011 that he questioned Obama’s birth certificate independently of Trump, according to the Republic.

“I had nothing to do with Trump on the birth certificate,” Arpaio told the crowd. “We did it on our own, because of you guys.”

After years of questioning Obama’s birthplace, Trump declared last week that Obama “was born in the United States, period.”

Tags Birther movement Donald Trump