On Friday, after Donald Trump’s wildly anticipated ‘Birther’ press conference, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager admitted the birther rumor was started inside the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Breitbart.com reported:
Patti Solis Doyle, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in 2008 until the Iowa caucuses, admitted on Friday that a Clinton campaign staffer had, in fact, circulated the Birther conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born outside the U.S. and therefore potentially ineligible to serve in the presidency.
Doyle made the admission on Twitter, as she responded to former George W. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.
No, @AriFleischer, it is not. The one rogue staffer who sent an email was fired pretty damn quick.
This is a lie. https://t.co/Js93dkSVdW
— Mo Elleithee (@MoElleithee) September 16, 2016
Doyle appeared about an hour later on CNN with Wolf Blitzer to address the issue once again. She denied that Hillary Clinton had started the Birther theory — then admitted that someone in the Clinton campaign had, in fact, been involved. Here is part their exchange:
Blitzer: Someone supporting Hillary Clinton was trying to promote this so-called Birther issue? What happened?
Doyle: So we — absolutely, the campaign nor Hillary did not start the Birther movement, period, end of story there. There was a volunteer coordinator, I believe, in late 2007, I believe, in December, one of our volunteer coordinators in one of the counties in Iowa — I don’t recall whether they were an actual paid staffer, but they did forward an email that promoted the conspiracy.
Blitzer: The Birther conspiracy?
Doyle: Yeah, Hillary made the decision immediately to let that person go. We let that person go. And it was so, beyond the pale, Wolf, and so not worthy of the kind of campaign that certainly Hillary wanted to run.
More…
Hillary’s chief campaign strategist spread the nasty rumor in 2007.
The Daily Wire reported:
In 2007, a full year before anyone would know the name Orly Taitz, Hillary’s chief campaign strategist Mark Penn would craft a wide-ranging strategy memo that included questioning the very American-ness of then-Senator Barack Obama, who was even then seen as Hillary’s chief rival for the nomination.
The Atlantic:
[Penn] wrote, “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.” Penn proposed targeting Obama’s “lack of American roots.”