A five-year tour with the U.S. Border Patrol brought me into contact with the various departments within the patrol.  One was Border Patrol Intelligence, those Border Patrol agents who worked on the other side of the Mexican border to root out, with the help of the Mexican authorities, those organizations that facilitate the movement of foreign nationals heading to the U.S. as well as discover those black-market facilities that produced what Border Patrol agents called "bogus documents."  The real challenge for illegal aliens was to not only circumvent U.S. immigration law, but acquire a perfect facsimile of a "government-produced" identity card — one that looks great on the outside but is actually a bogus document.

Three years after leaving the Border Patrol and becoming a U.S. Air Force civilian, I was dispatched to Newport, Rhode Island as a student at the Naval War College.  One of my "electives" had a specific name, but for purposes of this article, I'll call it "intelligence agency appreciation."  During one such class, a visiting member from the "intelligence agency" demonstrated the capabilities of his office with two identical "identity cards."  He challenged us to determine which one was real and which was "bogus."  No one in the class could discern any visible differences.  He held up one and said it was the fake — he dropped it on the lectern, and it "clicked."  He held up the authentic one and dropped it, and much to our surprise, it "rang like a bell." 

I asked him if it was his job to make documents for his intelligence officers that could withstand the greatest level of scrutiny when his guys were operating in a foreign country.  He explained that if he failed, his guys would be caught.  He also said it is the job of law enforcement agencies to conduct forensic analysis to validate documents, but it is the purview of intelligence agencies — worldwide — to manufacture documents to such a degree of authenticity that they cannot be detected as bogus by foreign nations' customs and law enforcement officials. 

The next time "bogus documents" were discussed was when Donald Trump offered President Obama five million dollars for a certified copy of the president's birth certificate.  Under withering criticism, Mr. Trump claimed he had sent private investigators to Hawaii to see what they could find, that there was something on that birth certificate that President Obama didn't want the public to see.  Trump wasn't alone, as over 200 Americans went to court to challenge President Obama's bona fides.  Secretary of state Hillary Clinton immediately excoriated the real estate magnate for trying to "delegitimize" the first black president.

In a country of 330 million people, only Donald Trump was able to force President Obama to capitulate and produce a certificate of live birth.  This was hugely embarrassing for President Obama, and this gave him and the Democrats a motive to seek revenge.  

Those with a little knowledge of immigration law were well aware that there was more to President Obama's constitutional eligibility than a birth certificate.  His father was reportedly from Kenya, and that was a huge problem.

Apparently, in 2007–8, the media were unaware of the spectacular research capabilities of the internet, for had they conducted the tiniest bit of journalistic investigation, they would have found that in 1988, Yale Law Student Jill Pryor fully researched the topic in The Natural-Born Citizen Clause and Presidential Eligibility: An Approach for Resolving Two Hundred Years of Uncertainty.  She found that "[i]t is well settled that 'native-born' citizens, those born in the United States, qualify as natural born.  It is also clear that persons born abroad of alien parents, who later become citizens by naturalization, do not.  But whether a person born abroad of American parents, or of one American and one alien parent, qualifies as natural born has never been resolved" (my italics).

The two 2008 presidential candidates both had unresolved constitutional eligibility issues.  The media barely reported that the U.S. Senate took action and "resolved" the issue by passing Senate Resolution 511, recognizing "that John Sidney McCain, III, is a natural born citizen, a person born abroad of American parents ... as stipulated by Article II of the U.S. Constitution[.]"

But there was absolutely no reporting that Senate majority leader Harry Reid could not get a single Republican to support a similar resolution declaring that Senator Obama, a person born of one American and one alien parent, was also a natural born citizen.  Senate Republicans knew that in U.S. immigration law, a person born of one American and one alien parent is not a natural born citizen, but a dual citizen.  A "dual national" is ineligible to be president. 

From newsrooms across the country, the news media issued bogus documents daily in the form of newspapers proclaiming that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen by virtue of being born in the United States.  They ignored the failure of the Senate to proclaim him a natural born citizen and ignored U.S. immigration law. 

The question Donald Trump and others in courtrooms and newsrooms across the country should have asked was about not birth certificates, but immigration documents.  "Under U.S. immigration law, John McCain's parents were required to register their newborn's birth in a Panamanian hospital with the U.S. Embassy.  Under the Kenyan constitution, Barack Obama's Kenyan father was required within 90 days to register his newborn's birth as a dual national with the Kenyan embassy.  Doesn't that make Barack Obama, the son of a foreign national, a dual national, a citizen of another country, ineligible to be president?"  Was this a subject for the media to adjudicate or the courts?

One of the greatest powers of the media is their power to ignore.

Barack Obama's birth certificate was really the bogus document.  The authentic documents were the immigration documents at the U.S. State Department and with the Kenyan government.  In addition to a birth certificate, was Dr. Corsi deported from Kenya for asking about Obama family immigration documents?  Could one or more of Hillary's lost emails attest to the destruction of the Obama immigration record at the State Department?

In 2011, Donald Trump began making noise about running for president.  A president would be able to use the power of his office to unseal "sealed" presidential records.  At the Obama White House, Trump had to be stopped. 

In 2011, Obama had motive, but he just couldn't leave well enough alone.  He wanted to punish the man who was effectively delegitimizing his presidency.  National Security Agency director John Brennan, a career intelligence officer, knew of ways to destroy a person and his reputation; the intelligence agencies had ways to generate the most perfect documents for their undercover agents as well as to frame a target.  Brennan had the connections within the international intelligence community; local talent at the agency could not be trusted with such an explosive task.  There were old spies overseas who were looking for high-paying work.  To frame an American billionaire who dared question the bona fides of the president was a winning lottery ticket.  When the FBI became involved and investigated the apparently treasonous Trump, they were immunized, and they could claim that they were just "doing their jobs."

In order to destroy Donald Trump, there needed to be new leadership at the CIA.  Director Petraeus, who likely would not allow the use of the agency against an American or a potential political foe, had to go.  Someone at the Pentagon had the goods on Petraeus's dalliances and was willing to expose him.