Hawaii Gov. Says Proof of Obama's Birth Certificate Exists but Hasn't Produced the Document

Jan. 20,2011 — -- Officials in Hawaii say they have located President Obama's birth certificate indicating that he was born in the state, but have yet to produce the document at the heart of a long-simmering conspiracy theory.

"Our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives written down," Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie told Honolulu's Star-Advertiser.

"What I can do, and all I have ever said, is that I am going to see to it as governor that I can verify to anyone who is honest about it that this is the case," he told the paper.

Abercrombie said the controversy over publicly producing the document "has a political implication for 2012 that we simply cannot have."

It remains unclear if the document found in the archives was Obama's actual long-form birth certificate, which "birther" activists have clamored for, or if it was simply a record that such a document exists.

Since the 2008 election, conspiracy theorists and political opponents have suggested the president was not actually born in Hawaii and is therefore not a U.S. citizen eligible for the office.

The newly elected Democrat governor, and a college friend of Obama's parents, vowed soon after taking office in December that he would track down the birth certificate and lay the rumors to rest.

"We'll do what we can as quickly as we can to make it inevitable that only those who wish the president ill, only the ones with a political agenda, will be the ones doing this kind of thing," Abercrombie told CNN in December.

In an interview from the same time with the New York Times, Abercrombie said, "It's an emotional insult. It is disrespectful to the president; it is disrespectful to the office.

"There's no reason on earth to have the memory of his parents insulted by people whose motivation is solely political. ... Let's put this particular canard to rest," he said.

Despite his assurance to end the controversy, the governor has yet to present the document.