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Updated 6pm
DONALD TRUMP HAS, after five years, admitted that Barack Obama was born in the United States, and claimed credit for putting the issue to rest.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump said in brief televised remarks. “Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
But as Trump sought to put that false conspiracy theory to rest, he stoked another, claiming that the “birther movement” was started by rival Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence that is true.
“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” Trump said. “I finished it, you know what I mean.”
‘Ugly incident’
In a statement released late last night, campaign spokesman Jason Miller claimed Trump “did a great service to the country” by bringing closure to an “ugly incident” that Trump, in fact, fuelled.
“In 2011, Mr Trump was finally able to bring this ugly incident to its conclusion by successfully compelling President Obama to release his birth certificate,” Miller said.
“Mr Trump did a great service to the President and the country by bringing closure” to the issue, he added.
Inarguably, Donald J Trump is a closer. Having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate when others could not, Mr Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States.
Trump was, for many years, the most prominent proponent of the “birther” movement, which claimed Obama was born outside the US and thus ineligible to be president – despite the fact that he was born in Hawaii.
Trump’s comments were seen by many as an attempt to delegitimise the nation’s first black president and have turned off many of the African American voters he is now courting in his bid for the White House.
The statement came after an interview published by The Washington Post in which Trump again declined to say whether he believed Obama was born on US soil.
“I’ll answer that question at the right time,” Trump told the paper. “I just don’t want to answer it yet.”
A fraud
In August 2012 – more than a year after the president released the document in April 2011 – Trump was pushing the issue on Twitter.
“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud,” he wrote.
Trump has said repeatedly during the campaign that he no longer talks about the “birther” issue, but has refused to retract his previous comments, despite numerous opportunities. Instead, he has described the issue as an inconvenience.
“I don’t talk about it because if I talk about that, your whole thing will be about that,” he told reporters in his plane last week. “So I don’t talk about it.”
Obama had released a standard short form of his birth certificate before the 2008 presidential election. Anyone who wants a copy of the more detailed, long-form document must submit a waiver request, and have that request approved by Hawaii’s health department.
In 2011, amid persistent questions from Trump about his birthplace, Obama submitted a waiver request. He dispatched his personal lawyer to Hawaii to pick up copies and carry the documents back to Washington on a plane.
The form said Obama was born at 7:24pm on 4 August, 1961, at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynaecological Hospital in Honolulu. It is signed by the delivery doctor, Obama’s mother and the local registrar.
On the day he released the document, Obama jabbed at Trump. “We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers,” he said.
I don’t really see why this furniture can’t be moved to their new premises about a mile down the road. Maybe it doesn’t match the new carpets.
@Niall O D: why didn’t they keep the old building as well if your going down that route
@Niall O D: Most of it looks old enough to not really be worth much anyhow, seems to be why they chose an antiques dealer.
@Donal Proctor:The new building has doors that left handed people can use,Money well spent I think.
Wonder if they reformatted the hard drives in those photocopiers. Could make for some interesting reading otherwise.
@Séa Graham: hmmmm… worth a punt or even a Euro! Secret compartments and all perhaps? Personally I’d be afraid I’d catch something off them.
@Normal Josephine: they’ve probably barely been used. The shredders on the other hand…
@Séa Graham: Reformatted? I’d say those things were microwaved and burned. I couldn’t see them just leaving evidence of the largest fraud in history just laying about the place.
@The Guru: it would be funny if it hadn’t cost us all so much!
@The Guru: no shredders are available for sale as all have been burnt out due to excess usagw
Any printing press and plates going? €50 notes preferably.
@Brian Ward: don’t be greedy. I’ll settle for 5 or 10s
@Brian Ward: A press for Printing get out of jail free cards as well lol.
The Microsoft Solitaire burn-in on the computer monitors should see them available at a steep discount at auction.
@alphanautica: Can you imagine using software to undelete what was on those hard drives lol.
I have no doubt considering he knew he was the only one tendering there was a maximum return for the state. State of balance for whoever awarded the tender knowing this country
Should give the money to charity
@Donal Proctor: sure you wouldn’t know where the money was going there either
@Alan Curran: sad but true
@Donal Proctor: Should put the money back into the state pension pot that was raided to prop the banks up…
@Jane Alford: perhaps was more thinking the homeless
Why didn’t they offer all this stuff to the European Central Bank as part payment-in-kind of interest on the Bailout?
@Garreth Byrne:
All was offered to the ECB!
However, since the gas regulators used in the barista bar at the old CB building are a different fitting to that allowed in Germany, the offer was declined.
It was obviously an all or nothing type of deal on those 5,000 items in question. You know yourself…
@Rory J Leonard: Then what about the stockpile of paperclips? Surely the Germans use an international size for them.
Must have been some interesting conversations at those water coolers
The Bank asked Niall Mullen to buy all the contents. Who else did they ask? Was it on etenders?
He agrees and its now going to auction.
You can be sure he bought the contents for a song.
Why didnt the Bank send it straight to auction themselves?
Doesn’t sound right to me.
Excessive amounts of brown manila envelopes are up too
Either the motors on the shredders are burned out or they’re keeping them.
Where can they be viewed?
@Peter McGlynn:
Sean Eacrett Auctions
Ballyshaneduff
Ballybrittas
Co. Laois
Ireland
R32D932
Ireland
For years I’ve overheard Dublin Walking Tour Guides describe the former Central Bank edifice as the most hideous building in Dublin City. One would wonder why it would merit “listed status”. Not the only example of tasteless 70′s design by Mr Stephenson who’s architectural style is officially classified as “Brutalist” in architectural circles or just plain “brutal” in Dublin colloquial speak.
I’d say there was some sneacta snorted from that boardroom table
The creation of double speak employment.
Should it not be free to take away since we own it all ready
Most of the stuff is rubbish
have your say