Trump Fanned The Flames Of False Conspiracy About Kamala Harris

The president replied: "I just heard it today that she doesn't meet the requirements and by the way the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer."

President Donald Trump has fanned the flames of false controversial theory being promoted by supporters that Sen. Kamala Harris is not suitable for the vice presidency.

Kamala Harris was born to a Jamaican father and Indian mother in Oakland, California, on 20 October 1964.

But a conservative law professor has questioned her suitability to be chosen.

For many years, President Donald Trump supported a false “birther” theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Sen. Kamala Harris, a California senator, was revealed on Tuesday as the first woman of colour to serve as running mate on a main-party U.S presidential ticket.

She is deputy to Democratic White House candidate Joe Biden, who will challenge Trump, a Republican, in November’s general election.

At Thursday’s press conference, President Donald Trump was asked about the quarrel against Harris.

The president replied: “I just heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements and by the way the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very highly qualified, very talented lawyer.”

“I have no idea if that’s right. I would have assumed the Democrats would have checked that out before she gets chosen to run for vice-president.”

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“But that’s a very serious, you’re saying that, they’re saying that she doesn’t qualify because she wasn’t born in this country.”

The reporter said there was no question that Kamala Harris was born in the U.S, simply that her parents might not have been legal permanent residents at that time.

Earlier on Thursday, a Trump campaign adviser, Jenna Ellis, resent a tweet from the head of conservative group Judicial Watch, Tim Fitton.

In that tweet, Mr Fitton asked whether Harris was “ineligible to be Vice President under the US Constitution’s ‘Citizenship Clause'”.

He also shared a view of piece published in Newsweek magazine by John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University in California.

Prof Eastman cites Article II of the US Constitution’s wording that “no person except a natural born citizen… shall be eligible to the office of President”.

He also mentioned that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution says “all persons born… in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens”.

Prof Eastman’s quarrel links on the opinion that Kamala Harris may not have been forced to U.S jurisdiction if her parents were, for example, on student visas at the time of their daughter’s birth in California.

In 2010, Prof Eastman applied to be the Republican candidate for California attorney general. He lost to Steve Cooley, who went on to be beaten by Harris in the general election.

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Following enraged comeback to the Newsweek op-ed, its editor-in-chief Nancy Cooper stood by her word to publish, quarreling on Thursday that Prof Eastman’s article had “nothing to do with racist birtherism”.

Another constitutional law expert told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that Prof Eastman’s fight about Ms Harris’ suitability was “truly silly”.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School, wrote in an email: “Under section 1 of the 14th Amendment, anyone born in the United States is a United States citizen.”

“The Supreme Court has held this since the 1890s. Kamala Harris was born in the United States.”

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University and usual attack of President Trump, called Prof Eastman’s fight “garbage” and “racist birtherism redux”.

Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, told the Associated Press news agency “Let’s just be honest about what it is: It’s just a racist trope we trot out when we have a candidate of colour whose parents were not citizens.”

Back in 2011 President Donald Trump stoking right-wing birther opinions that President Barack Obama might have been conceived in Kenya.

Even when Obama provided a copy of his birth certificate in April that year revealing he was conceived in Hawaii, Mr Trump continued to say it was a “fraud”.

During a September 2016 press conference Trump, then the Republican White House candidate, was questioned about the issue.

He sought to take credit for banish doubts over Obama’s suitability, telling reporters: “I finished it. President Obama was born in the United States. Period.”

President Donald Trump also quarreled in 2016 that his Republican rival Ted Cruz was not fit to run for president because he was conceived in Canada to a U.S citizen mother and a Cuban-born father.

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