Hulton assumed that by “helping” the student, Mary Ayers meant she and her husband were financially supporting the black foreign-exchange student with his education.

He says that Mary Ayers told him the student’s name, but that it was a “strange name” that he could not remember, even though at the time it sounded African to him.

“I was taken aback by how enthusiastic she was about him,” Hulton says. “And I believe she said he was from either Kenya or Indonesia, and I favor Indonesia in my recollection.”

Hulton describes the man as being in his early 20s, noting that he was tall, thin, had a light complexion and that his ears stuck out.

“He greeted me,” Hulton says. “He was very polite, dressed nicely, but informally – slacks and a dress shirt – and he spoke with no accent. Immediately this young black man entered into conversation with me. He told me he had taken the train out from Chicago and had come to thank the Ayers family personally for having helped him with his education.”

Hulton remembers asking the young man what his plans were for the future.

“He looked right at me and told me he was going to be president of the United States,” Hulton says.

“There was a little bit of a grin on his face when he said it – he sounded sure of himself, but not arrogant. I know how people will say things because they have an ambition, but it did not come across that way,” Hulton says. “It came across as if this young black male was telling me he was going to be president, almost as if it were the statement of a scientific fact that had already been determined, as if his being president had been already pre-arranged.”

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Hulton observed several news reports detailing the relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers, and he recalled the encounter with the young man in front of Tom and Mary Ayers’ home.

“The facial and physical characteristics, as well as candidate Obama’s voice, matched that of the young black male I met in front of the Ayers’ home,” Hulton says in the affidavit he signed Nov. 12, 2011, for Sheriff Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse investigation.

“I am positive that the black male I spoke with in front of the Ayers’ house that day was indeed a young Barack Obama.”

Hulton says Obama mentioned to him taking the train. The Metra, a commuter from downtown Chicago, stops at a Glen Ellyn station a little more than a mile from the Ayers’ residence.

Michelle Robinson, Obama’s wife-to-be, was the attorney at the firm assigned to mentor Obama in the summer of 1989.

Bernardine Dohrn also had worked as a paralegal at Sidley Austin, from 1984 through 1988. Dohrn’s 1960s radical activities as a self-described “revolutionary communist” landed her on the FBI’s list of 10 most wanted fugitives, and because of her felony conviction, she was not allowed to take the Illinois bar exam.

Widely speculated in Chicago is that Dohrn got the job at Sidley Austin through the influence of her father-in-law, Thomas Ayers, who was one of the law firm’s biggest clients.

Michelle Obama started at the firm in the summer of 1988 and remained there until 1991.

Hulton recalls meeting Dohrn at the home of her in-laws, although his encounters with her were limited to having Dohrn sign for mail addressed to her.