No, Clinton didn't start the birther thing. This guy did.
Despite what Trump says, the 2008 Clinton campaign and the candidate herself never trafficked in the rumors.
After years of denying the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency, it was
only in the midst of his own presidential campaign that Donald Trump began falsely claiming Hillary Clinton was the true progenitor of the “birther” conspiracy theory claiming Obama was not born in the United States.
But that’s swapping one discredited claim for another. Numerous
fact checks,
reports and
interviews — in 2008 and 2011, when Trump revived the controversy — revealed that although some Clinton supporters circulated rumors about Obama’s citizenship, the campaign and Clinton herself never trafficked in it.
“There has never been evidence that Clinton or her campaign started the birther rumors,” said Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed, who as a POLITICO reporter in 2011 linked the origin of the “birther” movement to a fringe politician in Illinois. Some hardcore Clinton backers circulated the rumors in 2008, but the campaign itself steered clear.
“As we reported, some of her supporters flirted with the idea in 2008 — but it has its origins in the fever swamps beginning in Illinois in 2004,” he said.
In fact, birtherism, as it’s been called, reportedly began with innuendo by serial Illinois political candidate Andy Martin, who painted Obama as a closet Muslim in 2004. That spiraled into a concerted effort by conspiracy theorists to raise doubts about Obama’s birthplace and religion — and essentially paint him as un-American.
Martin, who briefly launched a little-noticed
presidential campaign last year, has
disavowed the movement he’s often credited with starting, though he still foments
similarly discredited doubts about Obama’s religion.
Despite what Trump says, the 2008 Clinton campaign and the candidate herself never trafficked in the rumors.
www.politico.com
