WMR -- GOP dirty tricks operatives dispatched to Kenya to dig up any useful "dirt" on Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, Jr., and his late Kenyan father Barack Obama, Sr., believe they have found a "smoking gun." In this case, it is a birth certificate from the Kenyan city of Mombasa registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr., on August 4, 1961. However, the registration is a common practice in African countries whose citizens abroad have families with foreign nationals. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to his Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, and Barack Obama, Sr., of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya. Obama's parents were enrolled at the University of Hawaii. They divorced when Barack Obama was two years old.

On February 25, 2008, WMR was the first to report that a GOP opposition research team had arrived in Kenya to dig up dirt on Obama and his father: "WMR's intelligence sources in Africa are reporting that amid the post-election turmoil wracking Kenya, a three-person team (including a possible Korean-American woman) arrived in Nairobi last week and began asking questions about Barack Obama's father, the late Barack Obama, Sr. The team also inquired about the Senator Obama Secondary School in Nyangoma-Kogelo in northwestern Kenya, the area where Obama's father, an ethnic Luo, hailed and where his grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango, still lives."

It now appears that this same team traveled to Mombasa and dug up a certificate registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr., to his father, a Kenyan citizen, and mother, an American citizen. The GOP hopes to make the claim that Senator Obama is not eligible to become President of the United States because he was born in a foreign country, or, at the very least, plant the seed in the voters' minds that Obama is a foreigner even if the charge is false.

GOP operatives are already trying to make political hay out of the federal conviction on June 4 of Chicago Democratic fundraiser Tony Rezko on 16 of 24 corruption charges. The Republicans are attempting to show that Rezko had close links to Obama although the probe was more closely connected to the administration of Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich. If Rezko becomes a centerpiece of the GOP campaign against Obama, expect Democrats to resurrect John McCain's role as one of the infamous "Keating Five" US Senators. McCain was tarnished in the corruption and bribery investigation of failed Lincoln Savings and Loan chief Charles Keating in 1989.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

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