By WND.com
Prominent Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier has posted an explanation on the network’s website of why he believes Barack Obama is eligible to be president.
“Here’s the deal,” wrote Baier, host of “Special Report with Bret Baier.” “The Constitution requires that the president be a ‘natural born citizen,’ but does not define the term. That job is left to federal law, in 8 U.S. Code, Section 1401. All the law requires is that the mother be an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. for five years or more, at least two of those years after the age of 14. If the mother fits those criteria, the child is a U.S. citizen at birth, regardless of the father’s nationality.”
However, Harvard-educated Jerome Corsi, author of Where’s the Birth Certificate? says Baier isn’t quite on track yet.
“Baier incorrectly interprets that 8 USC Section 1401 was written to define ‘natural born citizen,’ as specified in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution,” he said. “The purpose of 8 USC Section 1401 is to define ‘nationals’ and ‘citizens’ of the United States ‘at birth.’”
Corsi explained that citizens at birth are not “natural born citizens” under the meaning of Article 2, Section 1.
“Nowhere in 8 USC Section 1401 does Congress make any mention of the term ‘natural born citizen’ or to Article 2, Section 1,” Corsi said.
Baier, who took over the time slot from Brit Hume in January 2009, previously was the network’s chief White House correspondent. Prior to that he was national security correspondent, reporting on defense, military and intelligence community issues. He has reported from Iraq 12 times and from Afghanistan 13 times.
He said he posted the information because of all of the questions being raised about Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and whether they qualify as “natural born citizens.”
“This is obviously getting a lot of attention … so we think we should do a full piece on the show about it … and maybe have a panel of constitutional scholars … and legal experts to discuss this,” he wrote.
“There obviously is a lot of confusion.”
He said, “The brouhaha over President Obama’s birth certificate – has revealed a widespread ignorance of some of the basics of American citizenship.
“The law lists several categories of people who are considered American citizens at birth. There are the people born inside the United States, no question there. There are the people who are born outside the United States to parents who are both citizens, provided one of them has lived in the U.S. for any period of time. There are the people who are born outside the United States to one parent who is a U.S. citizen and the other who is a U.S. national (that is, from an outlying possession of the U.S.), provided the citizen parent has lived in the United States or its possessions for at least one year prior to the birth of the child.
“And then there are the people who are born outside the United States to one parent who is a U.S. citizen and the other who is an alien, provided the citizen parent lived in the United States or its possessions for at least five years, two of them after the age of 14,” he said.
“They’re all natural born U.S. citizens,” he said. Corsi, however, explained further.
“To novices, the distinction between ‘citizen at birth’ and ‘natural born citizen’ may be trivial. Under law, the distinction is meaningful and important. A mother who takes advantage of ‘birth tourism’ to fly from Turkey or China (or any other foreign country) to have a baby born in the United States might arguably give birth to a ‘citizen at birth,’ under the meaning of the 14th Amendment, extended by 8 USC Section 1401,” he said.
“But consider that the mother and child return to China and Turkey and raise the child. The child does not learn to speak English and does not learn anything about U.S. history or culture. Yet at age 35, the child returns to the U.S., spends the necessary years here to meet the residency requirements under Article 2, Section 1, and runs for president.”
He continued, “‘Natural Born Citizen’ is a term of natural law — it specifies that a child must be born in the USA to two parents who were U.S. citizens at birth.”
As to Obama’s documentation, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio assembled a Cold Case Posse of professional law enforcement investigators who looked into the birth certificate information Obama posted online from the White House.
Their conclusion: There is probable cause that there was forgery in the creation of the document and fraud in its presentation to the public.
There are many who believe that even if Obama was born in Hawaii he wouldn’t be a “natural born citizen,” as the father listed on his birth documentation never was a U.S. citizen. Barack Obama Sr. left Stanley Ann Dunham to go to graduate school, then returned to Kenya where he served as a government official and married additional wives.