Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) claimed American Indian ancestry in her application for the State Bar of Texas, according to a new report documenting the previously undisclosed example of Warren claiming American Indian ancestry.
“Warren filled out the card by hand in neat blue ink and signed it,” The Washington Post reported. “Dated April 1986, it is the first document to surface showing Warren making the claim in her own handwriting. Her office didn’t dispute its authenticity.”
The Post notes that this latest revelation is likely to cause problems for Warren because Democrats “want a nominee who can move beyond any problems in their past and present a strong challenge to President Trump.”
“The Texas bar registration card is significant, among other reasons, because it removes any doubt that Warren directly claimed the identity,” the Post added. “In other instances, Warren has declined to say whether she or an assistant filled out forms.”
The post notes that the date on the State Bar of Texas registration card “coincided with her first listing as a ‘minority’ by the Association of American Law Schools.”
“The date Warren reported herself as minority in the directory every year starting in 1986 — when AALS first included a list of minority law professors — to 1995, when her name dropped off the list,” The Post continued. “Warren also had her ethnicity changed from white to Native American in December 1989 while working at the University of Pennsylvania. The change came two years after she was hired there.”
The revelation comes after Warren apologized last week for to the Cherokee Nation for having claimed American Indian ancestry after her disastrous DNA test.
The New York Times reported that Warren “tried to put a nagging controversy behind her by apologizing privately to a leader of the Cherokee Nation for her decision to take a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry last year, a move that had angered some tribal leaders and ignited a significant political backlash.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly mocked Warren over her claim, calling her “Pocahontas,” a label that Warren has been unable to shake and continually draws attention to the issue.
“Advisers close to Ms. Warren said she has long expressed private concern that she may have damaged her relationships to Native American groups and her own standing with activists, particularly those who are racial minorities,” the Times added. “However, as recently as December, Ms. Warren defended the decision to take a DNA test in an interview with The New York Times.”
During her first 2020 campaign rally in Iowa earlier this month, Warren “was confronted by a voter in Sioux City on Saturday morning over her controversial decision to use a DNA test to prove her claims to Native American ancestry,” according to CNN.
“I am not a person of color,” Warren said. “I am not a citizen of a tribe. Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry. Tribes — and only tribes — determine tribal citizenship, and I respect that difference.”
“Pocahontas (the bad version), sometimes referred to as Elizabeth Warren, is getting slammed,” Trump tweeted late last year. “She took a bogus DNA test and it showed that she may be 1/1024, far less than the average American. Now Cherokee Nation denies her, ‘DNA test is useless.’ Even they don’t want her. Phony!”
“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,” Trump added. “Harvard called her ‘a person of color’ (amazing con), and would not have taken her otherwise!”