Donald Trump really is an American citizen, documents released Tuesday finally verify. While bloviating at length about the validity of President Obama's birth certificate on a variety of talk shows through most of March, the billionaire real estate developer released what he thought was his own proof of citizenship on Monday, only to discover that he was wrong.
Indeed, the document Trump handed over to a conservative website Monday turned out to be a "certificate of birth" and not an official birth certificate. After cries of hypocrisy rang through the blogosphere and commenters pointed out all the reasons why what he produced wasn't what he proclaimed it was, on Tuesday Trump's team got their hands on his actual birth certificate.
"A 'birth certificate' and a 'certificate of live birth' are in no way the same thing, even though in some cases they use some of the same words," Thuy Colayco, from Trump's staff, wrote to ABC News. "One officially confirms and records a newborn child’s identity and details of his or her birth, while the other only confirms that someone reported the birth of a child. Also, a 'certificate of live birth' is very easy to get because the standards are much lower, while a 'birth certificate' is only gotten through a long and detailed process wherein identity must be proved beyond any doubt."
Colayco went on to explain that a certificate of live birth would not be accepted to obtain a passport or a driver's license, whereas a birth certificate could.
Although some Republicans, like Trump, are questioning the validity of Obama's birth certificate, one conservative who is likely to run for president in 2012 is making it clear that he is not a birther.
"I, for one, do not believe that we should be raising that issue," former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Tuesday of the president's birth certificate on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I think President Obama was born in the United States."
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