White House Releases Obama's Long-Form Birth Certificate

The White House has released President Obama's long-form birth certificate, saying the document is "proof positive" the president was born in Hawaii.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the administration decided to release the full document in response to mounting questions about the president's birth. He noted that what started as Internet chatter had moved into the national political debate and ended up being discussed regularly on mainstream news outlets.

He said the president believed the matter was becoming a "distraction" from major issues.

Obama plans to discuss the release of the document Wednesday morning at the White House.

The document lists Obama's birthplace as Honolulu, Hawaii, and his birth date as Aug. 4, 1961. The hospital listed is Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital. The name on the birth certificate is Barack Hussein Obama II.

Obama's presidential campaign, in response to questions raised in 2008, at the time posted a short-form version of the document on the Internet. But conspiracy theories continued to fester. They gained legs in recent weeks as Donald Trump, who is toying with the possibility of running as a presidential candidate in 2012, repeatedly and publicly questioned Obama's origin.

Pfeiffer, on the White House blog, said the president thought the attention was "bad for the American people" and directed his counsel to request access to the long-form document from the Hawaii State Department of Health. The department granted an exception to release the long-form document "because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting," the White House said.

"At a time of great consequence for this country -- when we should be debating how we win the future, reduce our deficit, deal with high gas prices, and bring stability to the Middle East, Washington, DC, was once again distracted by a fake issue," Pfeiffer said on the blog. "The President's hope is that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues that matter to the American people and the future of the country."