Larry Sinclair's 1999 Barack Obama Claims

Overview

Larry Sinclair's 1999 Barack Obama Claims refers to allegations from a man named Larry Sinclair about purportedly doing crack cocaine with and having sex with former U.S. President Barack Obama in 1999 during the politician's time in the Illinois Senate. Sinclair first aired his claims in the form of a YouTube video posted in January 2008, and he subsequently held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. in June 2008 to repeat his assertions. Sinclair was never able to produce any evidence to support his claims about Obama, and he was arrested for an outstanding larceny warrant soon after his press conference. In late 2023, Tucker Carlson interviewed Sinclair on his show hosted on X (formerly known as Twitter), subsequently resulting in the accusations seeing a resurgence online.

Background

In January 2008, Larry Sinclair posted a series of videos to his now-deleted YouTube account (seen below) that showed him recounting a supposed experience he had with then-newly elected United States President Barack Obama. In the videos, Larry claims to have had sex with and consumed drugs with Obama in the back of a limousine in 1999.^[1]

Sinclair maintained his story about his purported relationship with Obama on his WordPress blog "LarrySinclair0926."^[2]

Soon after Sinclair posted his videos to YouTube, the website Whitehouse.com reportedly offered Sinclair $100,000 if he could pass a polygraph test that verified his claims. Sinclair agreed to the conditions, but the polygraph organizers reported that his results "indicated deception." Sinclair's attempts to sue the organizers for bias were possibly cut short by his lawyer's license being suspended for being a "vexatious litigant."^[6]

In June 2008, Larry Sinclair then held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. where he spoke for an hour in great detail about his purported sexual liaisons with Obama, which he claims to have taken place once in the back of a limo and another time in a hotel room in Gurnee, Illinois. A video of Sinclair at the press conference can be seen below.^[3]

On June 20th, Sinclair posted a picture of himself at the National Press Club to his blog, leading the police to arrest him on account of outstanding larceny warrants in his name.^[4][5]

Criminal History

According to Politico,^[6] Larry Sinclair has a history of criminality that includes forgery, fraud and larceny. At the time of Sinclair's arrest in June 2008, he had been charged with forgery in two states and had earned a 16-year jail sentence.

Sinclair was arrested after delivering his press conference due to an outstanding warrant issued by a Colorado Sheriff's Office for forging an acquaintance's signature in order to steal her tax refunds.^[6]

According to Wired, news about Sinclair's warrant and his location on the day of his press conference was tipped off to Washington D.C. police by bloggers "Mitch and Nan," who followed Sinclair's moves from their location in Paris with the help of a local correspondent.^[7]

Developments

Tucker Carlson Interview

On August 29th, 2023, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson made an appearance on the Adam Carolla Show^[8] and said, "In 2008, it became really clear that Barack Obama had been having sex with men and smoking crack." He went on to say, "A guy came forward, Larry Sinclair, and said 'I'll sign an affidavit' and he did, 'I'll do a lie detector' and he did."

Tucker calls Sinclair's claims "obviously true" despite Sinclair failing the lie detector and also failing to provide any proof of his claims beyond his testimony. The clip was reposted in an X^[9] video posted by user @Chadwick_Moore on August 30th, 2023 (shown below).

Tucker Carlson teases an upcoming interview with Larry Sinclair, a man who was ridiculed by the press after coming forward with allegations that he smoked crack and had sex with Barack Obama in 1999, when Obama was a state senator in Illinois. pic.twitter.com/bmlRuds7Cy

— Chadwick Moore (@Chadwick_Moore) August 30, 2023

On September 6th, 2023, Carlson^[10] then posted a teaser from his interview with Sinclair in which Sinclair can be seen discussing an incident that supposedly took place in 1999. Sinclair claims to have given Obama $250 to purchase crack cocaine, which Sinclair said he purportedly snorted and Obama smoked before they slept together.

Tucker Carlson's video on X gathered over 55 million views and 150,000 likes in a day (seen below).

A man who claims he had sex with Barack Obama in 1999 tells his story. Wednesday. 6pm ET. pic.twitter.com/iDYMSww1KS

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) September 5, 2023

Search Interest

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External References