Arizona Sheriff: Obama Birth Certificate Definitely Forged

Controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio's posse of volunteer investigators has concluded that President Obama's birth certificate is definitely ... a fake. Chief investigator Mike Zullo, revealing the investigation's findings yesterday, said he had contacted an "amazingly sharp" 95-year-old woman named Verna K. Lee, a local registrar who worked in Hawaii at the time Obama was born and whose signature appears on his birth certificate. Asked about twins who were born the day after Obama but had a lower number on their birth certificate, Lee said there is no way her office could have made a mistake and stamped certificates out of order, although they were gathered for stamping in stacks each month, reports the Phoenix New Times.

Zullo told reporters that there was nothing political about the investigation. "This isn't us chasing down the president," he said. "Everybody wants to make it that. I'm really at loss to understand why it's so difficult for people to understand that this isn't politically motivated." Critics say the Arizona sheriff's "birther" probe is a smokescreen to distract attention from his other problems, including his office's failure to properly investigate hundreds of sex crimes, and his trial in a class-action racial profiling lawsuit, which begins tomorrow. (More Joe Arpaio stories.)