Alabama’s senior Republican Senator Richard Shelby is having to backtrack today on comments he made at a town hall meeting Saturday in Cullman, which may have been made in retaliation for recent reports alleging that White House counsel Graig Craig violated Shelby’s attorney-client confidentiality when he talked to North Alabama lawyer Jill Simpson about representing her before her testimony in the Siegleman case before the House Judiciary Committee, as we reported early this morning in this story.

Shelby’s office is calling a Cullman Times report “incomplete” and a “distortion” of his comments on President Obama’s citizenship status during a town hall meeting Saturday.

When asked during the meeting whether there was any truth to the rumor that Obama was not a United States citizen, Shelby said, “Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president.”

According to the Politico, a Washington-based publication, Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo issued the following statement:

“The Cullman Times article contains an incomplete account, and therefore a distortion, of Sen. Shelby’s comments regarding President Obama’s citizenship. At the town hall meeting in Cullman, Sen. Shelby laid out the Constitutional qualifications for the Presidency and said that, while he hasn’t personally seen the President’s birth certificate, he is confident that the matter has been thoroughly examined.”

The Times stands by its reporting as complete and accurate, according to a statement on the newspaper’s Web site. The paper is also seeking video or audio recordings from the meeting to verify the report.

According to FactCheck.Org, the birth certificate of birth from Hawaii is authentic.

Some people area asking: Is this a Trent Lott moment?