Arpaio doubles down, wonders if Obama ever attended Harvard
Mar 1, 2018, 4:41 AM | Updated: 8:26 am
(AP Photos)
PHOENIX — U.S. Senate candidate Joe Arpaio questioned whether Barack Obama attended Harvard during a recent interview, doubling down on his skepticism about the former president’s past.
When speaking to the Washington Post, Arpaio hinted that he wanted to see proof of Obama’s educational history.
“Do you have his transcripts or his record?” he asked.
The topic came up while the reporter, Michael Scherer, and Arpaio were discussing the so-called “birther” theory that claims Obama was actually born in Africa and his Hawaii birth certificate was falsified so he could run for political office.
The former Maricopa County sheriff said earlier this year that he would continue his investigation into the document should he be elected to the Senate in the November general election.
“I started this because a fake document, a government document — I didn’t care where the president came from, I didn’t care at all,” Arpaio said in a January interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
When asked by Cuomo if he believed Obama’s birth certificate was a phony, without a beat Arpaio replied: “No doubt about it. No doubt about it.”
Arpaio also told WABC radio that he wants to get the evidence to Congress so “they can pass some type of law, some regulation, that when someone runs for president, you ought to check their background so this won’t happen again.”
But despite the doubts the former lawman has cast on Obama’s birth certificate, he may be harder pressed to disprove he attended Harvard Law School.
His time at the school has been well-documented. Obama entered the prestigious program in 1988 and interned at several firms while taking courses.
He also served as the first black president of the “Harvard Law Review,” a moment that was covered nationally. Obama earned his Juris Doctor from the school in 1991.
Arpaio, a Republican, has also claimed that a misdemeanor contempt of court case — of which he was found guilty and pardoned by President Donald Trump — was brought on him for political purposes by Obama, a Democrat.