Sheriff Arpaio to reveal 'newest revelations' on President Obama's birth certificate

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - President-Elect Donald Trump is back-pedaling on earlier claims that President Obama's birth certificate is a fraud. Now one of Trump's biggest supporters, outgoing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, is making headlines once again over the issue.

The sheriff, who's been at odds with the administration for years, says he's investigating the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate since 2012. Now Arpaio is set to make another announcement in that ongoing probe on Thursday afternoon.

In a press release on Wednesday, MCSO stated, "Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Chief Investigator Mike Zullo will be presenting their newest revelations to the years' long investigation of the birth certificate presented by the White House in 2011 of President Obama."

Sheriff Arpaio has maintained the president's long-form birth certificate is forged, saying it was computer-generated. Arpaio even sent an employee to Hawaii to investigate.

The sheriff says the probe was necessary because hundreds of people tied to a Tea Party group in Arizona raised allegations that the president's birth records was forged.

"I do have ideas about a birth certificate, yes, and that is my job. Right now, we have no info to substantiate that it is a legitimate document right now," said Arpaio back on September 16.

In 2012, Trump sent out a tweet, saying, "Congratulations @RealSheriffJoe on his successful cold case posse investigation which claims Barack Obama's birth certificate is fake."

Trump acknowledged three months ago that Obama was born in the United States.

Speaking of Arpaio, back in September, incoming Sheriff Paul Penzone, a candidate at the time, told the Associated Press, "Here, he has a resource with a volunteer base and instead of using it for serious public safety investigations, he is wasting it on nonsense."

We'll find out what revelations will be made on Thursday. The sheriff's news conference will be held at 4:00 p.m. FOX 10 will be livestreaming his comments on fox10phoenix.com/news-now and our facebook.com/fox10phoenix pages.