By Pat Shannan
A new story making the rounds on the Barack Obama birth certificate scandal comes from a respected Hollywood producer, who also happens to be a long-time friend and financial supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. According to Hollywood movie producer Bettina Sofia Viviano, the Clintons were the first documented “birthers,” referring to people who question the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate, but were frightened into silence with threats of violence against their daughter, Chelsea.
Ms. Viviano, who once headed production for Steven Spielberg, said in a video interview with tenacious birth certificate chaser Jerome Corsi, that it was a common belief inside Hillary Clinton’s campaign that Obama was not eligible to be president and that both Clintons were waiting for the right time to blow the whistle during the 2008 campaign. Ms. Viviano had access to the campaign through a documentary she produced regarding some delegates’ claims that Obama and the Democratic National Committee were stealing the nomination from Mrs. Clinton.
However, the Clintons’ intentions of going public with the fact that Obama was ineligible came to a screeching halt with the murder of Clinton friend and Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney on August 13, 2008. He was shot in the party headquarters by a man with no apparent motive.
According to Ms. Viviano, Gwatney’s murder was a message to Bill Clinton that “he was next.” Ms. Viviano added that Clinton refused to succumb to the threats and intimidation and was prepared to speak out about the birth certificate truth until he was advised, “‘Okay, then it is your daughter that we will go after,’ and after that, Bill never said anything.”
Since the 2008 campaign, Clinton has joined the party line by publicly insisting that Obama is eligible for the White House.
He weighed in on the issue in an April 2011 interview with ABC’s popular morning talk show “Good Morning America,” when Donald Trump was urging Obama to release his long-form birth certificate to the public.
“If I were them,” the former president said, “I’d be really careful riding that birther horse too much. Everyone knows it’s ludicrous.”
Ms. Viviano, who knew the facts firsthand at the time, still says today that everybody who calls this a conspiracy created by the tea party or the Republicans needs to know who really started it.
“The Clintons were the original ‘birthers,’” she said.
Pat Shannan is an AFP contributing editor and the author of several best-selling videos and books.
