Former Hawaii Health Director Chiyome Fukino - at the center of the Obama citizenship issue - has given an interview in which she claims that Obama has a valid birth certificate on file in Hawaii. Per her, the certificate is half handwritten and half typed and is signed by the delivering physician. She also claims that the information on the "Certification of Live Birth" ("COLB") shown on Obama's...
On July 27, Chiyome Fukino of the Hawaii Department of Health released a statement in which she said that Obama was born in Hawaii. One of the curious things about the statement (at the link) is that she claimed to have verified that "Obama... is a natural-born American citizen". She's not a legal scholar and thus wouldn't seem to be qualified to make that determination. But, now it turns out...
... former Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino to MSNBC, in which she claimed Hawaii law prevents Obama's long-form birth certificate from being disclosed, even to Obama himself.
"I didn't hear the statements on MSNBC," Slom admitted, "but I do not believe that part is true."
4/28/11 UPDATE: Looks like I was right all along. See the PDF here where the current director of Hawaii's Department of...
Dr. Chiyome Fukino of the Hawaii Department of Health has issued a press release that supposedly says (link from Dan Nakaso of the Honolulu Advertiser):
"I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai'i State Department of Health verifying Barrack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born...
... Hawaii Department of Health, Dr. Chiyome Fukino. Nowhere in this press release does she verify that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. The PDF is available at hawaii.gov/health/about/pr/2008/08-93.pdf.
See also the full details on this issue at the Obama citizenship page.
---------------- BEGIN STATEMENT ------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
News Release
LINDA LINGLE
GOVERNOR
CHIYOME...
On October 31, 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, released a statement verifying that Barack Obama's birth certificate was on file in their records. However, despite what you might have heard, she did not verify that he was born in Hawaii. And, she did not verify that the certificate on file in Hawaii matches the "COLB" pictured on Obama's site and at FactCheck...
... Hawaii.
Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.
Fukino says that no state official, including Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, ever instructed that Obama's certificate be handled differently.
She says state law bars release...