I wonder if Reed Hayes, credentialed handwriting expert, has ever been in this situation before. He’s produced a report for Mike Zullo1 that expresses an opinion on the authenticity of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate. I would think that in just about every other job Hayes has taken that his reports are either made public (as in testimony in court) or they are kept private, being only of interest to the parties involved in the controversy over a document. Has he ever before provided a report whose contents are characterized widely in public, but whose client tells him not to talk about it?
It did happen before: a respected document examiner in 2011 did a report on that same long-form birth certificate, its contents were characterized in public, and the folks doing the characterization (WorldNetDaily) refused to publish the actual report. In that case the examiner, Ivan Zatkovich, felt it necessary to publish the report himself because it was being mischaracterized and his conclusions distorted. You can read my 2011 article on this affair, “WND document expert says: not quite accurate.”
Conspiracy theorists try to prove things by asking open-ended questions and expect the reader come to a conclusion. What follows is a number of questions I have, but I do not expect the reader to come to a conclusion; in fact, I intend exactly the opposite. By posing these questions, I hope that the reader will recognize the difficulty of arriving at a conclusion.
- What does the Hayes Report say?
- Reed Hayes is certified as a forensic document examiner by the National Association of Document Examiners. Which if any of the forensic disciplines that fall under that certification was used by Hayes in arriving at his conclusions.2
- It is well-documented that the forensic disciplines involving pattern matching (handwriting, fingerprints, bite marks, etc.) are subject to bias when the expert is supplied additional information in advance about the case. What did Zullo say to Hayes in the way of additional information about the case before Hayes did an analysis? Did Zullo simply give Hayes copies of his discredited reports from his birther volunteers, and ask him to buy in to them, or did Hayes start with a fresh slate and do an independent analysis? In any case, it is unlikely that Hayes was unaware of the claims of the birthers. What was Hayes’ opinion of birthers before Zullo showed up?
- Are there available any other reports by Hayes in other cases? Has he ever testified in federal court, and if so, what case?
- It is generally acknowledged among handwriting experts, that reliable conclusions require examination of original documents not photocopies. How did Hayes get around this problem?
- It is reported by Zullo that Hayes is a registered Democrat. Apart from the fact that voters don’t register by party in Hawaii, did Hayes vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama? Conspiracy theorist and birther Phil Berg was a Democrat, but not an Obama supporter.
- What is meant by the statement reportedly by Hayes that the birth certificate is a 100% forgery? Hayes himself has said that handwriting analysis is only 80-90% accurate. Where does the 100% come from, and how certain does Hayes actually say that he is of his conclusions in his report. Finally, it would be interesting to know why Hayes took the case when reportedly over 200 of his colleagues turned it down.
If what Zullo says is true, and he has fairly characterized the Hayes Report, we may conclude that Reed Hayes has indeed gone over Niagara Falls in a leaky barrel, but there are just too many unanswered questions to jump to any conclusions just yet.
I realize that Reed Hayes has been asked by his client not to discuss the report, but I would welcome any comments from him on the generalities raised here. He can reply in comments or on the site’s contact form.
1I say “for Mike Zullo” as a matter of convenience. The best information I have is an email reproduced at The Fogbow reportedly from Hayes stating:
I did in fact perform work for Mr. Zullo with respect to the Obama Certificate of Live Birth. However, the results are strictly confidential, to be released only by Mr. Zullo and/or the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Posse, the legal owners of my report. Please contact Mr. Zullo directly for answers to your questions.
2According to Zullo, the Hayes Report includes these words:
based on my observations and findings, it is clear that Certificate of Live Birth I examined is not a scan of an original paper birth certificate, but a digitally manufactured documented created by utilizing material from various sources.
That conclusion does not to seem to come from any of the forensic disciplines certified by the NADE. We have one independent source for what Hayes concluded from RealityCheck who reports an email he received from Hayes saying:
Thanks for inquiring about the Obama birth certificate. Yes, I did an examination and have concluded the birth certificate released by the White House is indeed fabricated.
Since Reed is a handwriting expert, my guess his report has something to do with typesetting on the birth certificate and possibility the perfect precision signature on Stanley Ann Dunham.
Perhaps Hayes confirms Paul Iyer’s analysis of the birth certificate – 100% forgery.
If the report were to have any validity, this would seem to have to be the case. However, Hayes seems to say that that his conclusion is that the PDF is not a scan of a paper document, something that would be unrelated to particulars of handwriting. BTW, the Dunham signature doesn’t have perfect precision.
Perhaps it does. Irey concluded that the document was a forgery before he even looked at it. Maybe Hayes did that too. Certainly Irey’s report was an example of extreme bias invalidating results, and I wouldn’t doubt that the Hayes report is the same thing.
Perhaps Hayes is right. NBC forgot to use safety paper in his tests so he results are skewed. Moreover, Hayes may looked at the 1200 tests (something NBC did not do) they ran on the PDF. According to Zullo, the PDF failed all the tests. BTW, Dunham’s signature does look strange. It seems to jump out you in weirdness. I’m not an expert but I can’t explain it. It looks too precise. The signature looks “artificial”. Maybe Hayes saw the signature and immediately knew there was something wrong with the document.
Are there available any other reports by Hayes in other cases? Has he ever testified in federal court, and if so, what case?
I would also ask if Hayes has ever testified that a document was fraudulent based on only examining an electronic copy prior to this report?
Which one of Irey’s analysis? He did have to revise it a few times when it was pointed out how flawed it was.
I would love to have Zullu include this report in a court setting, that would be an Obats dream come true. This whole silly forgery issue would be blown open. Please Zullu get this into court, we need the laugh.
i’m delighted that so many people are looking at this now, I think all of you are too.
if we can get (all the evidence) before some sort of impartial body (congress) with authority, that can only be a good thing.
a long time ago, I said let’s get john woodman (I suggested frank go along with him) into a room with the folks that disagree about this science).
but there are so many other cross referenced anomalies and blank spaces and unaccountable relationships, sometimes fantastic (fictional) renditions of the obamas’ provenance.
the birthers are making good progress, they are compiling a case. it has taken a long time, but in the interest of the future of this nice country, there can be no time limitations, only a sublime premium of truth and transparency to which we have grown accustomed.
John,
You do understand that typesetting and hand writing are two very different things, don’t you..?
Be careful what you wish for. Woodman’s the wrong guy, though. There are some real forensic document experts qualified in electronic documents. Those are the ones to go to court.
it’s the right thing to do doc. the administration can send whomever they wish, they don’t seem to have a hard time finding experts, lawyers, and expert lawyers. I can’t imagine anyone with a better working knowledge of the specifics than frank. and frank will tell you how great he is too! just saying.
How can you describe as progress a succession of discredited nonsense?
You can add zero as many times as you want, but the result is zero. In this case though, what the birthers are adding is negative for them, and every crank they bring forward just puts them deeper into the hole.
No, the right thing to do is what the administration is doing…acknowledging you exist only as a joke to be used at dinner speeches and fundraisers. Past that, you got nothing.
Congress an “impartial body with authority”?
Well, maybe Issa is an Obot and tried to do his best nobody will pay attention to another Congressional witch hunt ever again.
How about a debate between you and Frank? Oh wait…
Coward said what?
But we know from Pappit’s list that they never tried any of the MRC-equipped Xerox machines. If Hayes looked at anything from the Zullo reports, his opinion is tainted beyond use.
No the president is doing the right thing. He should no longer coddle a bunch of bigoted fringe dwellers who can’t accept reality.
I guess we can add Progress to the list of words Scott doesn’t know the meaning of
he did on 4/27/11 Kenneth. historian dude thought it was a bad idea. you all will find, in the end, it’s your own arrogance that brings you down.
were just waiting for act three.
I don’t have much respect for people hiding behind microphones, or lecture podiums.
all’s fair in love and war.
And what does a handwriting expert bring to the table in a discussion about typesetting?
Since you have contact with Zullo can you ask him what what he meant on the Info Wars interview from a couple days ago about how copyrighting the report will put it “under seal”?
And, while you are at it, ask him who now owns the copyright? If it’s not Reed Hayes who or what is it?
Sublime? The only thing sublime here is the level of nonsense.
No progress is being made. There is no compelling case.
At this point it’s value is entertainment….but not much more.
And a scam being perpetrated on the birthers…but like all good scams the victims don’t even realize they’re being scammed.
Ah, taken right from the Mario Appuzo School of Success. Losing is winning, up is down, red is blue, etc.
Now that we know that it was ‘digitally manufactured’ by a Xerox Work Center, I wonder how Mr Hayes feels…
ROTFL, their case is falling apart under their feet as we speak… Now we know that the ‘forger’ was merely a Xerox Workcenter document rotated and saved in Preview…
nbc:
has hayes surfaced since you found the “forger”?
isn’t it the duty of law enforcement (aka the posse) to put the forger in cuffs? after all we no longer have a suspect or person of interest but a full-fledged culprit
since the pdf resembles the photo that Savannah Guthrie. took, what is Hayes issue, is he even aware of the photo? Is Hayes just being silly?
forger of the month club, starring bill ayers. hey can you get me savannah’s autograph ??
“based on my observations and findings, it is clear that Certificate of Live Birth I examined is not a scan of an original paper birth certificate, but a digitally manufactured documented created by utilizing material from various sources.”
I completely agree with Hayes’ statement.
It’s a scan of a COPY of a birth certificate, digitally manufactured (by scanning hardware and PDF software) by using materials from various sources (toner, paper, silicon, etc).
Unless Zullo releases the full report, I’m forced to conclude that Hayes’ conclusion completely agrees with NBC’s.
nonsequiturs as always Scott. So what did you think about President Johnson’s birth certificate perfectly valid to you?
There was a dialog on the old BBC Goon Show that reminds me of the Hayes Report. It goes this way:
Bluebottle: What time is it Eccles?
Eccles: Err, just a minute. I’ve got it written down on a piece of paper. A nice man wrote the time down for me this morning.
Bluebottle: Ooooh, then why do you carry it around with you Eccles?
Eccles: Welll, um, if a anybody asks me the time, I can show it to dem.
Bluebottle: Wait a minute Eccles, my good man.
Eccles: What is it fellow?
Bluebottle: It’s writted on this bit of paper, what is eight o’clock, is writted.
Eccles: I know that my good fellow. That’s right, um, when I asked the fella to write it down, it was eight o’clock.
Bluebottle: Well then. Supposing when somebody asks you the time, it isn’t eight o’clock?
Eccles: Well den, I don’t show it to ’em.
If the content of the Hayes Report is roundly disproven say by the Xerox discovery, then Zullo doesn’t show it to anyone. I mean, every report the Cold Case Posse has issued has fallen apart under scrutiny, but it’s impossible to debunk an unpublished report.
Don’t hold your breath.
If somebody who has been used in court as handwriting expert (ab-)uses his reputation to deliver a report on something he is not an expert in (see Mara Zebest), this is a pretty silly thing to begin with.
That way, it is just an attempt to cash in on his credentials in another field, pretty much like asking the Pope or Chip Foose to give his opinion on the BC.
I just wonder why Hayes played along and effectively sold his reputation to the CCP (and for how much money).
If Hayes had actually given an opinion on the handwriting on the BC and made a new claim why it “proved forgery”, that would’ve been something. However the entire setup does not make that impression.
right carl, another phony scandal.
it’s a dead issue that you have been clinging to for years. where’s the fascination ?
doc’s scintillating personality ??
The human tragedy of the birthers.
No, no scott……it’s your snappy repartee that keeps me glued to my screen.
Don’t listen to Rickey, he doesn’t have your best interests at heart.
Go ahead and hold your breath as long as you want – longer even.
Just as phony as your selective outrage about Benghazi and your selective vetting of Presidential Candidates.
Birthers are a never ending source of entertainment.
He may be figuring that his report will never see the light of day, and it certainly will never be scrutinized in a court of law. So from his standpoint the downside is pretty close to zero and he got himself a piece of the birther contributions to the CCP.
Now that’s a pretty easy guess, payment for the report, proceeds from the book, and a bunch of gullible people ready to hang on his every word…new customers. Heck, if Zullo said they’d discovered a psychic who said the President was ineligible, the birthers would be ready to plop down their money and believe anything the psychic said.
IMO, he just screwed up. We don’t know what his knowledge base about the birthers was before he was approached by Zullo.
Zullo gave him everything that they had “found” and asked him to verify it.
Now, if you are ignorant about computers or even just mildly competent with them and you are presented the CCP “evidence”, I can see someone saying that it looks fake.
And in the absence of competing evidence, the CCP’s stuff might seem compelling.
Scott is ahead of himself, anyway. He doesn’t realize that the birthers are still stuck in Act One with no prospects of getting to Act Two, much less Act Three.
Schadenfreude.
doc, why do you think this hasn’t gone away.
why did you say you thought releasing the long form was a bad idea ??
Since we haven’t seen Hayes report, I am not in any hurry to cast stones at Hayes.
He really may have had no idea that Birthers are the nutjobs that they are.
Zullo may have approached him by email, with the offer of a lucrative commission- and like many of these types of deals, Zullo almost certainly conveyed his bias when he contacted Hayes.
Lawyers find ‘experts’ that can be rellied upon to reach the ‘correct’ conclusion all the time. Hayes may well be such a reliable expert.
On Alex Jones TV Zullo said someone put him in touch with Hayes and that Hayes at first said no but Zullo convinced him this was “not about the President, just a document”. Zullo said he sent has the file and Hayes called back within 20 minutes and said “there is something here”.
I just read one of Reed Hayes’ articles that he links on his website. What a complete load of horsepuckey graphology is. But, I don’t write. I print.
He had me at “Essentially, the same principles apply to the anal.” I wonder what a hyphenologist would have to say about that.
Talk about an unfortunate choice of where to place a hyphen! This paragraph cracked me up too.
Yep, those connections between letters tell all. Hayes certainly sounds loopy to me.
But, Zullo is not exactly an exemplar of truth and honesty.
There is that. And President Obama is the only president in history never to step foot on Mount Vernon property.
Because that is the way of conspiracy theories. Read the literature on them.
Why are people still writing books about the JFK assassination? At least seven new JFK conspiracy books are coming out this fall. One thing they have in common with the birthers is that no two conspiracy theories are the same.
There are still people who believe that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor in advance and did nothing. There are still Birchers who believe that Eisenhower was a Communist and that fluoridated water is a Communist plot.
I, too, crack up at the “100% forgery” motif. I suppose 100% of the materials could be ‘alternately sourced’, making a forgery 100% not what it portends to be, in a physical sense. But what is at stake is not the physical object, but the truth of the information presented. A forgery presenting 100% fake information would be complete fiction, total nonsense.
Obsessing over forms to avoid substance is misdirection, sleight of mind. Birthers have been reminded of this for years. C’est la vie.
Why hasn’t the moon landing hoax deniers gone away or the holocaust deniers? Why do people still think there was a conspiracy about 9/11? Your fellow conspiracy theorists continue to be idiots.
Why do you continue not to answer our questions?
Really now, my handwriting is atrocious because I am too lazy and sloppy to take my time. That’s all there is. Since I type much faster to keep up with my thinking, I have much less incentive to fix my handwriting.
Has anyone actually read any of Reed Hayes handwriting?
Maybe Mr. Hayes addresses that in this book of his:
http://www.amazon.com/Handwriting-Socio-Sexual-Implications-Reed-Hayes/dp/B000714MAQ/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375546274&sr=1-11
… by “Astro-Analytics Publications” LOL
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Astro-Analytics+Publications
The same reason that actually taking photos of the Apollo Moon landing sites was a bad idea.
The same reason that the Flat Earth society still exists after its formation in the 19th century, despite the fact that people have known that the earth is a tilted sphere since around 250 BC, That “controversy hasn’t gone away” either.
And that you continue to tell yourself that your postings are popular despite not one singe person ever expressing support or even responding to you. The controversy over the popularity of ScottE’s postings hasnt gone away. Scotte alone thinks he is popular, 7 billion people disagree, then it’s a controversy you see.