Hawaii Gov. Says Proof of Obama's Birth Certificate Exists

Photo Courtesy - Getty Images(HONOLULU) -- Officials in Hawaii say they have located President Obama's birth certificate indicating that he was born in the state, but have yet to produce the document at the heart of a long-simmering conspiracy theory.

"Our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives written down," Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie told Honolulu's Star-Advertiser.

"What I can do, and all I have ever said, is that I am going to see to it as governor that I can verify to anyone who is honest about it that this is the case," he told the paper.

Abercrombie said the controversy over publicly producing the document "has a political implication for 2012 that we simply cannot have."

It remains unclear if the document found in the archives was Obama's actual long-form birth certificate, which "birther" activists have clamored for, or if it was simply a record that such a document exists.

Since the 2008 election, conspiracy theorists and political opponents have suggested the president was not actually born in Hawaii and is therefore not a U.S. citizen eligible for the office.

The newly elected Democrat governor, and a college friend of Obama's parents, vowed soon after taking office in December that he would track down the birth certificate and lay the rumors to rest.

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