Former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio says he will resume his controversial campaign challenging the legality of former President Obama’s birth certificate if he is elected to the Senate.
In remarks first reported by Right Wing Watch, Arpaio, now running in a GOP Senate primary, told a roomful of supporters in Arizona that he has remained silent about his accusations pertaining to Obama’s birthplace while campaigning. But Arpaio said he plans to resume his attacks if elected.
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“I don’t talk about it anymore, until I become a U.S. senator. … So I’m kind of dropping that right now,” Arpaio told the Western Conservative Conference in Phoenix.
“But I’m going to tell you something,” Arpaio continued, “One hundred percent we proved that’s a fake document. One hundred.”
Arpaio is running as a supporter of President Trump in the Arizona Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R). He faces two other GOP candidates in an August primary election, where he currently trails GOP Rep. Martha McSally (Ariz.), according to RealClearPolitics.
The former Arizona sheriff concluded a years-long investigation into the supposed forgery of Obama’s birth certificate in 2016, declaring that he had found evidence proving the document was fake. Arpaio and others who challenged the birth certificate have been accused of racism.
“This investigation was never about where President Obama was born,” Arpaio said at the time. “We were going to investigate a government possible forged document.”
In January, Arpaio told a news station he wanted Congress to investigate presidential birth certificates, again attacking the former president.
“I’m going to tell you again that that document is a forgery document,” Arpaio told WABC in January. “And nobody will touch it.”
“I wanted to get it to Congress so they can pass some type of law — regulation — that when somebody runs for president you ought to check their background, so this won’t happen again,” he added. “But I can’t get anybody — anybody — to even look at it.”