Debunking Vogt’s sealed affidavit–Part 1

Since there is little new debunking to accomplish, let me go back to some unfinished debunking. Douglas Vogt was one of a string of litigants who attempted to show that President Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery. Vogt attempted to force a federal court in Washington State to convene a grand jury to investigate. Vogt lost in that attempt. A significant part of his filing was an analysis by him purporting to prove that that Obama’s birth certificate was a crude forgery. Part of that proof was made public, and part of it was included in a sealed affidavit, which became unsealed when it was submitted as part of an appeal to the US Supreme Court. The original court filing was debunked in part by me on this blog, and also in full by Frank Arduini. Vogt’s analysis was wrong largely because he let his bias cause him to jump to unfounded conclusions, and to ignore obvious problems. More objective observers such as I and Arduini were able to spot the mistakes. See:

At the time those articles were published the Vogt sealed affidavit was unavailable, and so when it did come out, except for noting that I was one of his putative forgers, I didn’t address it.

We find in the sealed affidavit that Mr. Vogt fits the classic mold of the conspiracy theorist who when presented with evidence that his theory is false just makes the conspiracy larger to account for the evidence. The repeated verifications by the State of Hawaii of Obama’s birth there led Vogt to conclude that Hawaii officials were part of the conspiracy, and known birth certificates that invalidate some of his theories must be forgeries too. Vogt, of course, doesn’t realize what he is doing, recasting the facts in order to fit his theory, rather than starting with facts and testing the theory against them. (I should add that I am as certain that I am right as Vogt is sure that he is right. The difference between us is that I attack my own work critically from time to time to make sure my biases haven’t caused me to overlook things. I also have a community on this blog who can criticize any analysis I do. I publish all I have—unlike Douglas Vogt and Mike Zullo.)

What follows uses the section numbers in Vogt’s sealed affidavit.

1. The introductory introduces the fact that two individuals made available Hawaiian birth certificates for themselves. One is named. It also introduces, but does not discuss, a claim that the certificate number on one of the certificates is “off by 25 days.” I’ll go into that later.

2. The next paragraph introduces the second person who made her birth certificate public, a person born in 1961. This is Vogt’s principal forger.

3. The third paragraph mentions me and claims that I did research for the previous two conspirators. I can debunk this by my personal testimony. I never assisted those persons with forging any birth certificates.

4. The Hawaii State Registrar and Chief of the Office of Health Status Monitoring, Alvin Onaka, is named as someone who knew about the forgeries.

5. Former Hawaii Department of Health Direct, the late Loretta Fuddy, is alleged to have unexplained income. This is the first claim with sufficient specificity to debunk, and it has been long debunked. Vogt’s claim is nothing more than ineptitude in reading a financial statement. For a detailed analysis see my article “Fault found with Fuddy’s financial facts—fraud?” and particularly the section at the end labeled “Update.”

6. This section introduces an unsubstantiated claim (i.e. speculation) that Obama released his birth certificate because he was afraid of an upcoming book by Jerome Corsi.

7. In this section Vogt documents that birther Miki Booth gave “copies” of her family’s Hawaiian birth certificates to Jerome Corsi.

8. In this section Vogt claims that Corsi gave to him and to Paul Irey the “copies” from Booth. In this section Vogt shows tables of Hawaiian birth certificate numbers and dates of birth in order to test his hypothesis of how certificates were numbered. When the certificates failed to meet the hypothesis, he simply asserted that 8 of them were forgeries!

Miki Booth is known in some circles as the “Birther Princess.” She has impeccable credentials as a birther. Of all the people Vogt might have named as an accomplice in forging Obama’s birth certificate, she is one of the most outlandish and nonsensical choices.

9. In section 9, Vogt makes an argument from ignorance. He observes that (according to his image) that the certificate number on the Booth certificate from 1949 contains a leading zero that is misaligned with the rest of the digits, and appears to be of a different font. He then concludes that this indicates forgery because he doesn’t know of a 4-digit numbering machine, nor why they would use such a machine when there were more than 9,999 births a year in Hawaii. I can think of a reason—the baby boom following World War II might have required adding an extra digit in some way so they could still use the old machine. What is most troubling about what Vogt does is to present an image of what the certificate number “should have looked like,” an image fabricated by Vogt himself (since there is no way Vogt could have obtained an image of Booth’s certificate number apart from what Booth herself provided). That is, the real certificate number (bottom) is wrong, and Vogt’s own image (top) is right.

image

At this point it should be obvious beyond doubt that Vogt is operating on pure bias, with regard to the evidence. When you look at the actual Booth certificate is is pretty obvious that the “11 – 49 0” was printed at a different time than the 4-digit number, and almost certainly preprinted. It’s even more obvious in this image from Booth’s book (that Vogt cites, but doesn’t display):

image

10. Here Vogt uses his judgment to conclude that the last 2 digits of the certificate number are too close together. I can’t see any difference between Vogt’s “should be” and Booth’s “is.” Later Vogt blows up the image so that these tiny numbers are two inches tall (with computer software filling in image detail where none exists in the original) and then says that there is overlap between the 8 and the 2. Well duh.

11. Vogt concludes that a Booth certificate is a forgery based on his unsubstantiated theory of certificate numbering and the obvious mistake assuming that the “0” was part of the numbering machine rather than preprinted.

12. Here Vogt “finds” other purported anomalies in the Booth certificate. One prominent anomaly is the well-known fact that Hawaiian birth certificates are photocopied in reduction, which Vogt confuses with hand assembly of characters on the page because he can’t get them to line up with a full-sized grid. This error was discussed by me in my debunking of his public affidavit points 5 and 6. In this section, Vogt sees thing that aren’t there in the Booth images.

13. This is more typewriter stuff, which Vogt making claims of what should be, rather than what is. If he had published a good sampling of certificates from the same hospital and period, one might have been able to draw a scientific conclusion, but Vogt doesn’t. It’s all Vogt’s (and Irey’s) completely inexpert and biased opinion.

Sections 14-19 continue the unscientific methodology (asserting what Vogt and Irey things should be), ignoring the much more mundane hypothesis that old typewriters don’t align perfectly or type consistently.

Section 20 alludes to a “proof” contained in the public affidavit. He says “Capital letters cannot fall below the baseline” and in this instance the letters “TH” at the end of “BOOTH” appear to be lower than the rest. They also appear heavier than the rest, which could account for them appearing to be lower. It is also possible that the “BOO” are flying capitals, and that the “TH” us normal.

Section 21. What is interesting here in exposing bias is that Vogt assumes his conclusion that Obama’s certificate is a forgery to impeach that of Booth, saying that they have similar anomalies! But if they are the similar, how are they anomalies? The more direct conclusion is that they are both authentic.

Section 22 claims, with a good bit if hand waving, and no evidence, that some periods appear in places that are impossible. I don’t see any thing in this argument that makes sense.

Section 23 jumps to the conclusion that a particular person is the Obama forger, and then documents that Booth knows this individual.

Section 24 introduces Section 25 which invokes the silly Onaka smiley face as proof that the state of Hawaii was “in on it.” The smiley face is simply an optical illusion resulting from the human predilection in finding faces in images. For more on this see:

Section 26 invokes even more fantasy in Vogt’s mind as he believes he can see into the forger’s mind using smudges on the registrar’s signature stamp, and this amounts to a “confession.”

Section 27 reprises the assertion that another Booth certificate is numbered off by 27 days. Why would that be? There is a simple answer. All of the Booth certificates begin with the letter B, which force them hear the beginning of an alphabetic sequence of certificates within a monthly batch. All the known 1961 Hawaiian certificates fit the same pattern, alphabetic by last name within birth facility. There are sound administrative arguments for doing this, particularly in simplifying indexing of records for efficient lookup.

Section 28 is where I make my full appearance: “the perfect front man who created and also invested decades creating his credentials and history.” Doesn’t everyone who is a few decades old fit that description? But yes, I invested decades living my life and gaining my experience and building credentials.

Section 29 has Vogt assuming his conclusion, that Obama’s birth certificate is forged and then working backwards to assign guilt to the persons who did it. Of course any assumption of a false conclusion leads to an invalid argument.

Section 30-31 mentions this site. Vogt “thinks” my real name is Kevin Davidson. One point for Vogt. He cites my experience in vital records by quoting me. Two points for Vogt.

In Section 32 Vogt says that ObamaConspiracy.org became the “propaganda wing” of the Obama administration. Of course, Vogt thinks that anyone who criticizes birther nonsense is supporting Obama. I suppose that ideological motivation is a concept that feels natural to Vogt, but I started out basically knowing nothing about Obama, except what birthers claimed. I debunked birthers before I learned about Obama. Vogt then takes some insulting language I published about birthers, and then lies about it, saying that was all I could muster. Certainly Vogt knew of hundreds of substantive articles published on this site.

Section 33 was the first thing in the sealed affidavit that lightened the mood and gave me a chuckle.

After looking at [Dr. Conspiracy’s] articles and other obots (stands for “Obama Robots”) who post comments on his web site, it was obvious to me, that his web site was part of the disinformation program orchestrated by the White House through Jim Johnson a supporter of Obama and former head of Fannie Mae.

The Jim Johnson (aka JimBot) story was a “punk the birthers” operation that evolved over time. Even Jerome Corsi was taken in by that. That’s a long and hilarious adventure that you can read about in several articles here and at The Fogbow.

Just for the record, I have never had any direction from Obama, Jim Johnson, or anyone at the White House or the Obama campaign in running this web site. It is an independent activity whose sole content comes from the named writers and commenters here.

Section 34 contains a mistaken reading of an article that I wrote. I listed generic steps in the process of filing and numbering birth certificates. Because I worked on software for a number of states, I know the steps. I also know, and this was one of the original specifications for our software, that certificates are numbered at different times in the process indifferent states. I have not worked on certificates for Hawaii. Vogt just assumed that I intended to assert that certificates in Hawaii were numbered in the particular order that I listed the generic steps. Vogt asserts that I said something that I did not say when he used the words “at the same time and date,” something that is, as a general statement, false. Different states have differing procedures.

In fact, numbering certificates “at the same time and date”presents an administrative challenge because the process may result in a duplicate certificate, or one that is eventually rejected for some reason. If the certificate are numbered as they come in, then there are gaps in the certificate numbers for those that are removed. Accounting for voided certificates and number gaps is a complication. Some states get around this by assigning a “local file number” when the certificate is received and then a “state file number” at the end of the process. There are several variations. Vogt, lacing any knowledge of vital records process, would not know this.

Sections 35-36 deal with my reconstruction from 2009 of what I though Obama’s birth certificate might look like. He asks why I would do such a thing. Duh. I was presenting in graphic form what we knew and what we didn’t know about what would be on Obama’s birth certificate, should it ever come out. This is topical for a blog that spent a great deal of time on Obama’s birth certificate. He wonders why I updated my reconstruction in 2010. It was to improve it. Duh.

Vogt again demonstrates his bias and his ignorance by regurgitating the old birther saw about nobody using “African” for a birth certificate in 1961 because it was not on the approved list—it should have been “black” or “negro.” That is debunked thoroughly on this site (see here and here for example). What is interesting is that in Hawaii, neither African, black or negro was on the race code list for tabulations. There were so few black parents in Hawaii that they didn’t get their own category, being lumped into the category “other race” (see here).

In section 37 Vogt notes that I put “24 ?” for the age of Obama’s father and concludes that the “?” meant that I was doing research for what should be in the block. Well yes, the reconstruction was a research project, not some secret Obot plot, but a public discussion. Vogt then claims that Obama lied about his age, and I didn’t know about it. There is no mystery about the question mark, since my own article explains it:

Block 10. Obama Sr. was born in 1936 according to the Wikipedia, but the exact date is unknown. He might have been 24 or 25 years old.

I later learned that Obama Sr. use two different years of birth on various documents. I don’t know for sure which is correct. His tombstone says 1936.

Sections 38-39 note that when I reconstructed Obama’s birth certificate, the “0”) in the certificate number was above the baseline, just like Obama’s later-published certificate. Wow, I must have been the source for that anomaly! In fact, my article explained:

Note the imprecise registration of the digits on the Nordyke form that I roughly imitated.

Vogt puts it: “There is reason to display the numbers like this on a mockup unless you are copying something you have?” That’s true, but what I had in 2009 is not an Obama birth certificate, but the published Nordyke certificate, that looks like this:

image

That’s the certificate number of Susan Nordyke, which had been published prior to my reconstruction.

If you are not bored to tears by now, stay tuned for Part 2.

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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14 Responses to Debunking Vogt’s sealed affidavit–Part 1

  1. scott e says:

    i like it doc. well worth revisiting.

  2. Half a day wasted in my view.

    scott e: i like it doc. well worth revisiting.

  3. Doc

    Nice job and something worth doing I suppose. Another thing worth mentioning is that Vogt (unlike Albert Renshaw for example) has never recanted his earlier flawed analysis published on May 11, 2011. In that analysis he presents several pieces of so called evidence of forgery that we now know are artifacts of the Xerox WorkCentre work flow.

    For example he claimed:

    3. The Obama Certificate is loaded with both binary and grayscale letters which is just another smoking gun that this form is a forgery. It appears the lines and some of the boxes were scanned using grayscale, but only some of the form headings were grayscale and sometimes it is only some letters. Figure 11 and figure 4 give one example. You will notice that the H and, al, in Hospital, I in Institution, (If and again the h and l in hospital were grayscale images, but the rest of the line is binary. The typewriter line below was scanned in as a binary image. I can also tell you for certainty that the form type was scanned in at a lower resolution (≤200 dpi). This is because of the size of the pixels on the letters were such that the openings on the a and s on the first line are not visible and filled in. This may also further indicate that forger took some of the type images from the
    microfilmed copies.

    We know now that the reason some letters are in gray scale and some are binary is that it depended upon whether the letters are in the background JPG layer (actually 8 bit color) or in one of the binary foreground layers.

    8. Multiple layers in the PDF file from the White House. I am not the first one to find this fact and they deserve the credit for discovering it. What they discovered is that when you open up the PDF file in Adobe Illustrator and you turn on layers, you see a long list of nine different layers that correspond to different sections of the form, including the signatures on the form. Figure 25 shows the layer that contains most of the Typewriter and form text.

    I discovered using just my Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard that I could also see the different components disappear when I enlarged the image to just 400% and used the “hand” tool to quickly move around the image. When I moved the image fast, the various type components would disappear from the form but the lines stayed just as I had concluded.

    Of course this is just a rehash of the “layers are proof of forgery” claim made by Vogt and others. In fact hundreds of PDF’s with layers have been published and similar documents scanned on Xerox WorkCentre’s produce PDF’s with similar layers.

    Since Vogt’s original analysis is chock-full of errors that he has neither admitted nor explained why should anyone pay attention to these new and even more bizarre conspiracy claims?

  4. BitherBuster says:

    Why are you covering up for Miki Booth? 😉 Has she commented on this?

    Whatever happened to Vogt and Irey? Are they still alive?

  5. Yes, Miki Boot has commented on it. She says that the accusations about her and her friend from Hawaii are ridiculous. She told the Post & Email:

    I know what the truth is, so I don’t have to come out and say, “I didn’t do it.” I keep reading all of the comments that are out there, and it’s amazing how people have turned against me. People say, “Doug Vogt lays out a very concise case, and it really looks good,” and that he’s proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that we’re the culprits. In a way, it’s comical and makes me laugh, because they’ve named Dr. Conspiracy, who has come out and said that it’s not Miki Booth and Johanna Ah’nee. He’s made several comments to that effect.

    http://www.thepostemail.com/2014/05/15/miki-booth-rebuts-accusation-of-conspiracy-in-vogt-affidavit-pb/

    I’m not covering up for Booth, because there is nothing to cover up. None of the certificates Vogt examined are forgeries. There is no forger.

    Doug Vogt is still alive as of this week when I got an email from him. I assume Irey is OK, not having heard anything to the contrary.

    BitherBuster:
    Why are you covering up for Miki Booth?😉Has she commented on this?

    Whatever happened to Vogt and Irey?Are they still alive?

  6. There was significant controversy inside the birther community over the sealed affidavit, that basically used the same standards to impeach Obama’s birth certificate as it did to impeach certificates from Booth.

    Mike Zullo was in a bind since he had endorsed Booth. Andre at Birther Report said:

    “Perhaps folks are being too hard on Dr Con. Has anyone considered that he is actually a birther mole? Just be careful out there, doc…… )))))”

  7. Since you brought up Doug Vogt remember when he and Montgomery Blair Sibley claimed they had sent copies of Vogt’s sealed affidavit to 175 hand picked federal judges?

    Sibley wrote this on 2/4/2014 about the responses:

    One of my faithful – though anonymous – followers recently added a note to my last post stating: “So it has been almost a month now and not a single update. I think I can guess what the responses have all been. :snicker – snicker.”

    Au contraire mon ami. In fact three (3) federal judges have acknowledge receipt of Doug’s Affidavit. Two of them have forwarded the affidavit to their respective United States Attorneys. The third wrote back stating: “I was very impressed by the letter and attachments you sent to me. I do not dismiss the allegations you make as untrue.” The letter continued with the commitment to submit Doug’s affidavit to the Grand Jury for their consideration. So like a modern-day Diogenes, perhaps we have found one honest federal district court judge.

    Let me posit what will happen next. Doug and I – a former criminal prosecutor with extensive experience presenting evidence to a grand jury and securing indictments – will be invited to appear before the Grand Jury. Doug to detail the forensic evidence contained in his affidavit; Me to explain the legal options available to the Grand Jury to follow up on the evidence that Doug presents them. Operating outside the control of the United States Attorney’s office and with the support of the federal judge and the United States Marshal’s Service, a dozen federal Grand Jury subpoenas will be issued and served by the Marshal’s Service nationwide. The originals of Obama’s birth records from Hawaii, college transcripts from the three colleges he attended, along with his Social Security and Selective Service records would all be compelled to be produced to this Eric Holder-free Grand Jury. Additionally, the players in the Obama Birth Certificate pageant would all be called to testify as to their roles: Remember, there is no Fifth Amendment privilege to refuse to answer a question put to a witness by a Grand Jury.

    I guess that grand jury is taking a long time. 😆

  8. Notorial Dissent says:

    Monty really is just flat out delusional.

  9. Pete says:

    I kinda read the first line and the last line.

    What I find really suspicious is the pseudonym Dr. Conspiracy chose for himself.

    Ke. vin. Da. vid. son.

    Note the strange similarity between the second syllables of both names.

    Vin. Vid. That’s no coincidence, there.

    It MEANS something.

    And the number of letters in each syllable. All twos and threes. Why no fours and fives?

    Numerically, it’s 2, 3, 2, 3, 3.

    VERY suspicious.

    Coordinates? Geographic coordinate? Or… A ZIP code. 23233!

    Henrico, Virginia. Right on the outskirts of Richmond.

    RICH. MOND.

    RICH. MONDE. “Monde” is French for “world.”

    So Dr. Conspiracy is obviously from the “RICH WORLD,” that is, he has REALLY BIG money behind him.

    But who?

    WHO?

    WHO????!!!

  10. Speaking of delusion…..

    In 6. Vogt makes the claim that the release of the LFBC was coordinated with the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. He provides no evidence to support that claim.

    Vogt also claims the release of the LFBC was timed with the release of Jerome Corsi’s book Where’s the Birth Certificate. How convenient of Jerome Corsi to schedule the release of his book near the killing of Bin Laden so it could be pushed out of the news. Using Vogt logic that means Corsi is also in on the conspiracy.

  11. Isn’t that RC’s IP address (without the trailing 3)?

    Pete: Numerically, it’s 2, 3, 2, 3, 3.

  12. alg says:

    23233 Obviously a very important discovery…

  13. I will post my IP address as a public service. OK, let me check …….

    It’s 192.168.O.44

    I live to serve. 😉

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Isn’t that RC’s IP address (without the trailing 3)?

  14. Crustacean says:

    Well played, RC, well played…

    If only there were a way to put a little smiley face in the middle of the “O”.

    Reality Check: It’s 192.168.O.44

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