Birther row began with Hillary Clinton
The lie that Barack Obama was not born in the US has been fuelled by fringe Republicans — but supporters of Hillary Clinton, now Mr Obama’s Secretary of State, are largely to blame for starting it.
An anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii.
“Barack Obama’s mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy,” it said. “She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth.” Then in August 2008 Phil Berg, an ex-deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania and a renowned conspiracy theorist, filed a lawsuit alleging that Mr Obama was ineligible to be a candidate.