A new study has looked at the presidential families who owned slaves, and it revealed that President Trump is the only living president or former president whose ancestors were not involved in that industry.

And the results have sparked speculation from a commentator about whether Barack Obama would be called upon to pay reparations.

The study was by Reuters, and the Washington Examiner said the results confirmed “every single living president” had ancestors who owned slaves “except for Donald Trump.”

It speculated then, about the problems of assigning reparations – who should pay and who should get. Multiple jurisdictions across the United States have been grappling with the difficult issue.

But none has yet crossed the first bridge – who would have to pay the trillions of dollars being demanded by black activists, none of whom actually ever was involved in slavery.

“Consider the case of Barack Obama. The former president’s father was born in Kenya and only moved to America on a university scholarship to study economics. In a vacuum, Barack Obama Sr.’s lineage doesn’t put his son on either side of the reparations formula. His ancestors were never slaves in the United States. Obama’s mother, a white Kansan, had multiple slave-owning ancestors and probably black ancestors who were enslaved. Genetically speaking, matrilineal descent would put Obama on both sides of the reparations equation,” the report said.

“What is the purpose of reparations? If it is to redress slavery, then by logical extension, slaveholder descendants such as Obama would be taxed while Trump, whose grandparents were all European and thus never owned U.S. slaves, would be spared. Then how would recipients be compensated? If she were still alive, would Obama’s mother, who was legally and visibly white, be eligible for compensation? If the goal is to redress the discrimination faced by black residents during the Jim Crow era, when is the cutoff? Would Obama the elder then be included despite having no ties to slavery, as he studied at Harvard prior to the Supreme Court entirely eliminating Jim Crow laws?”

A report from Fox News said the study showed the ancestors of five living presidents, two Supreme Court justices, 11 governors and 100 members of Congress owned slaves.

“Presidents Biden, Carter, George W. Bush, Clinton and Obama all have ancestors who enslaved black people in their family trees, according to the report,” Fox explained.

It noted, “Prominent names included Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and James Lankford, R-Okla., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.”

The report said at the high court, “only Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch had slaveholding ancestors.”

This article was originally published by the WND News Center.

This post originally appeared on WND News Center.