NBC political reporter Jon Allen said Wednesday that Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D., Mass.) DNA test, which she could be between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American, shows she committed "some level of fraud" by claiming Native ancestry in order to benefit from affirmative action.
"The people that are most offended by this are people who believe in affirmation action," Allen said during an interview on the "Bill Press Show," "because they're like, 'Elizabeth Warren didn't need affirmative action.' She perpetrated some level of fraud, and that hurts affirmative action."
"She wanted to get it behind her before the midterms," Allen said when explaining why she did the DNA test and announced the results at all, "so she could have a clean slate to go in."
Warren, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, claimed Native American ancestry in the 1980s and 1990s when she applied for jobs at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Harvard Law School, a claim that has been scrutinized since she ran for Senate in 2012. As the Free Beacon previously reported:
Warren claimed to have been descended from the Cherokee Nation when she contributed to a Native American cookbook from the 1980s, "Pow Wow Chow," in which she signed her name "Elizabeth Warren-Cherokee." The senator also listed herself as a minority in an Association of American Law Schools directory, and, in the 1990s, Harvard Law School described Warren, a professor there at the time, as being "Native American."
Warren released the results of her DNA test on Oct. 15, framing the results as confirmation of her Native American identity. Cherokee Nation issued a statement in response, saying DNA tests have no bearing on tribal affiliation and that her actions were "undermining tribal interests."
"A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America," Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said. "Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation."
"Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong," his statement continued. "It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Elizabeth Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage."
President Donald Trump, who has mocked Warren for her heritage claims in the past, calling her "Pocahontas," said the results of her DNA test were evidence she had perpetuated "fraud."
"Now that her claims of being of Indian heritage have turned out to be a scam and a lie, Elizabeth Warren should apologize for perpetrating this fraud against the American Public. Harvard called her "a person of color" (amazing con), and would not have taken her otherwise!"
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052171444082360320
Another guest on the "Bill Press Show," Politico White House reporter Lorraine Woellert, asked, "Here we are 13 days away [from the midterms], why are we talking about Elizabeth Warren?"