Is Cuccinelli a “birther?”
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, sometime between early-November 2009 and mid-January 2010 (kudos to Ben Tribbett of Not Larry Sabato):
Q: “What can we do about Obama and the birth certificate thing?”
Cuccinelli: “It will get tested in my view when someone…when he signs a law, and someone is convicted of violating it and one of their defenses will be it is not a law because someone qualified to be President didn’t sign it.”
Q: “Is that something you can do as Attorney General? Can you do that or something?”
Cuccinelli: “Well only if there is a conflict where we are suing the federal government for a law they’ve passed. So it’s possible.”
Q: “Because we are talking about the possibility that he was not born in America.”
Cuccinelli: “Right. But at the same time under Rule 11, Federal Rule 11, we gotta have proof of it.”
Q: How can we get proof?”
Cuccinelli: “Well…that’s a good question. Not one I’ve thought a lot about because it hasn’t been part of my campaign. Someone is going to have to come forward with nailed down testimony that he was born in place B, wherever that is. You know, the speculation is Kenya. And that doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.”
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli press release March 15, 2010:
“I absolutely believe that President Obama was born in the United States. I don’t buy into the claims that he wasn’t. On the recording, I was asked a hypothetical legal question, and I gave a hypothetical legal answer in response. As I said previously, this issue was not a part of my campaign, and it is not part of what I am doing now as attorney general.”
Hypothetically, could Cuccinelli legally challenge President Obama’s nationality? “Only if there is a conflict where we are suing the federal government.”
Of course, such a lawsuit isn’t “hypothetical.” Cuccinelli is already suing the federal government over global warming and has threatened to sue the federal government over health reform. He may have inadvertently revealed his legal strategy.
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