Birther issue reborn - Trump to make statement on Obama birth

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump delivers remarks at a campaign event at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday abandoned his assertion that Barack Obama was not born in the United States after spending years promoting conspiracy theories that the country's first African-American president started life as a foreigner.

But never one to let a controversy go without fanning its flames, Trump accused his Democratic rival in the Nov. 8 election, Hillary Clinton, of beginning the so-called birther movement in her failed 2008 presidential campaign against Obama, a claim that does not stand up to scrutiny.