James O’Keefe: Trump Tried to Recruit Me for Obama Birther Mission

James O’Keefe, the conservative provocateur behind Project Veritas, claims Donald Trump once sought to recruit him to infiltrate Columbia University in a bid to get then-President Barack Obama’s sealed college records. In excerpts from an upcoming book seen by CNN, O’Keefe says Trump made the proposal during a 2013 meeting in New York City. Trump “suspected Obama had presented himself as a foreign student” to get into Columbia, “maybe even Harvard too, and perhaps picked up a few scholarships along the way,” O’Keefe wrote. He said Trump asked him to “get inside” the university to obtain Obama’s records. Trump publicly backed off from his birther conspiracy theories during his 2016 presidential campaign, but he has a long track record of suggesting Obama was born in a foreign country, even after Obama released his birth certificate to prove he was born in Hawaii. According to a report by The New York Times, Trump has continued to push the birtherism conspiracy theory behind closed doors at the White House.