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Robert Farley, FactCheck.org 5:48 p.m. EDT July 2, 2015

Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at a Jefferson Jackson event hosted by the Democratic Party of Virginia at George Mason University's Patriot Center, in Fairfax, Va., on June 26, 2015.(Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP)

Two Republican presidential candidates claim the so-called "birther" movement originated with the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008. While it's true that some of her ardent supporters pushed the theory, there is no evidence that Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with it.

In an interview on June 29, Sen. Ted Cruz said "the whole birther thing was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008," and earlier this year, Donald Trump claimed "Hillary Clinton wanted [Obama's] birth certificate. Hillary is a birther."

Neither Cruz nor Trump presented any evidence that Clinton or anyone on her campaign ever questioned Obama's birthplace, demanded to see his birth certificate, or otherwise suggested that Obama was not a "natural born citizen" eligible to serve as president.

For those unfamiliar with the controversy over Obama's birthplace, it refers to those who contend that Obama was born in Kenya and ineligible to be president.

At FactCheck.org, we have written about the issue of Obama's birthplace on multiple occasions indeed we were the first media organization to hold his birth certificate in our hot little hands and vouch for the authenticity of it. But facts have done little to squelch the conspiracy theories that continue to bounce around online.

The issue arose again this week in an interview with Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. Yahoo News' Katie Couric asked Cruz if he thought that was going to be an issue for voters.

"It's interesting, the whole birther thing was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008 against Barack Obama," Cruz said (at about the 25:25 mark). Cruz then went on to say that he believes he clearly meets the constitutional requirement for a president to be a "natural born citizen."

The claim about Clinton's tie to "birthers" was made earlier by Donald Trump in February at the CPAC event (at 24:20 mark). Trump who has a history of pushing bogus theories about Obama's birth said, "Hillary Clinton wanted [Obama's] birth certificate. Hillary is a birther. She wanted but she was unable to get it."

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Fact check: Was Hillary Clinton the original 'birther'?