WASHINGTON – California attorney Orly Taitz, who has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as president, has released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth and has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court for its authentication.

The document lists Obama’s parents as Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Obama, formerly Stanley Ann Dunham, the birth date as Aug. 4, 1961, and the hospital of birth as Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.

No doctor is listed. But the alleged certificate bears the signature of the deputy registrar of Coast Province, Joshua Simon Oduya. It was allegedly issued as a certified copy of the original in February 1964.

WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appear to be identical.

Last week, a counterfeit document purporting to be Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate made the rounds of the Internet, but was quickly determined to be fraudulent. The new document released by Taitz bears none of the obvious traits of a hoax.

One of the issues Taitz must deal with will be the authentication of the document. Critics immediately jumped on the Feb. 17, 1964, date for the document, explaining that the "republic" of Kenya wasn’t assembled until in December of that year.

Media Matters wrote, "Sorry, WorldNetDaily: Kenya wasn’t a republic until Dec. 1964."

But Kenya’s official independence was in 1963, and any number of labels could have been applied to government documents during that time period.

At Ameriborn Constitution News, the researcher noted that the independence process for the nation actually started taking as early as 1957, when there were the first direct elections for Africans to the Legislative Council.

"Kenya became an Independent Republic, December 12, 1963, which gives more [credibility] that this is a true document," the website stated.

The 1963 independence is corroborated by several other information sources, including the online African History.

Even the People Daily news agency cited, on Dec. 12, 2005, the "42nd independence anniversary" in Nairobi. "The country gained independence from Britain on Dec. 12, 1963," the report said.

An online copy of the Kenya Constitution, "adopted in 1963, amended in 1999," states: "CHAPTER I – THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA, Article 1, Kenya is a sovereign Republic. Article 1A, The Republic of Kenya shall be a multiparty democratic state…"

It was in November 1964 when the region voluntarily became a one-party state, according to an online source.

The region including Mombasa originally was dealt with as a separate independence movement, but it almost immediately became part of Kenya when the sultan of Zanzibar ceded the "coastal strip" to Kenya, according to sources.

Taitz told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn’t want his name known because "he’s afraid for his life."

Taitz’s motion, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, requests the purported evidence of Obama’s birth – both the alleged birth certificate and foreign records not yet obtained – be preserved from destruction, asks for permission to legally request documents from Kenya and seeks a subpoena for deposition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"I filed the motion with the court asking for expedited discovery, which would allow me to start subpoenas and depositions even before Obama and the government responds," Taitz told WND. "I am asking the judge to give me the power to subpoena the documents from the Kenyan embassy and to require a deposition from Hillary Clinton so they will be forced to authenticate [the birth certificate].

"I’m forcing the issue, where Obama will have to respond," she said.

"Before, they said, ‘You don’t have anything backing your claims,’" Taitz explained. "Now I have something. In fact, I have posted on the Internet more than Obama has. My birth certificate actually has signatures."

Join the petition campaign to demand President Obama resolve the question by revealing his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate!

Taitz’s most celebrated case involved a military officer, Maj. Stefan Cook, whose order to deploy to Afghanistan was revoked when he challenged Obama’s eligibility to hold office. That case has now been refiled in federal court in Florida, raising the specter of a class-action claim among members of the military that their orders aren’t valid because of questions surrounding Obama’s constitutional eligibility.

Taitz told WND she plans to file additional paperwork with the Florida court tomorrow, adding the alleged Kenyan birth certificate to Maj. Cook’s case.

The suit seeks damages and a declaratory judgment. Named as defendants are Simtech, Cook’s former civilian employer, and several officials, including Col. Louis B. Wingate and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

WND previously reported a judge in Georgia dismissed Cook’s case when the government suddenly revoked his orders to report to Fort Benning for deployment to Afghanistan.

WND reported when the case originally was filed that Cook’s concern was that without proof that there is a legitimate commander in chief, the entire U.S. Army becomes "merely a corps of chattel slaves under the illegitimate control of a private citizen."

Cook told WND: "As an officer in the armed forces of the United States, it is [my] duty to gain clarification on any order we may believe illegal. With that said, if President Obama is found not to be a ‘natural-born citizen,’ he is not eligible to be commander in chief."

The new complaint says it seeks Cook’s reinstatement with his civilian employer, Simtech Inc., as well as protection from the Department of Defense and president "from further retaliation for plaintiff’s challenge to the president’s constitutional authority."

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WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama’s status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama’s American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama’s citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Complicating the situation is Obama’s decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.

WND has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, his Punahou school records, his Occidental College records, his Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, his passport, his medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

Developing …

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews got into a heated exchange with a congressman on his show Tuesday as he revisited the question of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate — or lack of one.

Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., is a co-sponsor of the so-called "birther bill," which would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificates.

“Birthers” are those who believe Obama is not qualified to be president based on a belief that he was not born in the United States.

Campbell is not a “birther” and has never claimed that Obama was born outside the United States or should be disqualified from being president.

On the show, Matthews seemingly undermined claims by some that Obama has never released his birth certificate, producing what Matthews said was a true copy of it.

But Matthews made a false claim. Obama has never released his actual birth certificate. He has released another document, often provided by state authorities in lieu of a birth certificate, called a certificate of live birth.

Matthews on Tuesday said Campbell was "playing to the crazies" by supporting the "crazy" bill, and the congressman shot back that it was all about "putting the matter to rest."

Matthews also accused Campbell of "feeding the wacko wing of your party," and held up what he called a copy of the supposed Obama birth certificate.

Case closed?

The indisputable fact is that Obama has not released his birth certificate, which the state of Hawaii issues for all citizens born there.

Instead, his campaign has only released his certificate of live birth from the state of Hawaii, which is a document that offers a summarized version of the birth certificate.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Sen. John McCain quickly released his birth certificate when liberal bloggers raised questions about his eligibility to be president. McCain was born at a military hospital in Panama.

Obama could likewise put the matter to rest by releasing his actual birth certificate, which would show, among other things, the place of his birth and the doctor who performed the birth procedure. This information is not provided on the certificate of live birth.

As it stands, Obama is the only president in history whose birthplace is unknown to the public – a fact that would be stated on the actual birth certificate. Interestingly, his family has mentioned two different hospitals in Hawaii as the place of birth.

The fact that Obama has refused to release his actual birth certificate does not mean conspiracy theorists are right when they claim he was born in Kenya and therefore not eligible to be president. Investigators who have reviewed the claims have found no evidence Obama was born outside of Hawaii.

But Obama’s refusal to release his birth certificate does mean that Obama remains one of America’s most mysterious and opaque presidents ever.

Obama, for example, has not released many other documents regarding his public and private life.

Many of these documents were sought by reporters, who easily acquiesced when Obama said he would release them – though most presidential candidates release them as a perfunctory matter.

Among the key documents that continue to be shielded from the public by Obama: