“In January 2011, as the new Republican House majority was settling in and I was getting adjusted to the Speakership, I was asked about the birth certificate business by Brian Williams of NBC News. My answer was simple: ‘The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That’s good enough for me,’ ” Boehner wrote in an essay adapted from his book that was published Friday by Politico magazine.
The former speaker called his assertion at the time “a simple statement of fact,” but quipped “you would have thought I’d called Ronald Reagan a communist.”
“I got all kinds of shit for it—emails, letters, phone calls. It went on for a couple weeks. I knew we would hear from some of the crazies, but I was surprised at just how many there really were,” Boehner said in the essay.