Sen. Elizabeth Warren may want to keep a firm grip on her soda cans for the foreseeable future.
Boston radio host Howie Carr revealed Friday that he attempted six years ago to obtain a DNA sample from a pen cap she removed with her teeth before she signed a book—and said he plans to try it again unless she agrees to take a test voluntarily.
Mr. Carr offered to send her overnight a DNA kit and challenged her to take the test with him “at the cheese shop of your choosing in Harvard Square” in order to resolve the dispute over her claims of Cherokee ancestry.
“I have a backup plan, but it will involve some sneaky stuff, which I’ve tried before,” Mr. Carr said in a Boston Herald op-ed.
During Ms. Warren’s 2012 Senate run, one of his people handed her a copy of “Pow Wow Chow,” the Indian cookbook to which she submitted a recipe, along with a capped pen at a campaign event in Worcester.
“Before she realized she was being pranked, Fauxcahontas pulled the cap off the pen—with her teeth,” said Mr. Carr. “I sent the pen off for testing. But alas, there wasn’t enough saliva on it.”
SEE ALSO: Cherokee genealogist slams Elizabeth Warren’s ancestry claims as ‘ludicrous’
His challenge comes with calls rising for Ms. Warren to test her DNA to resolve her claims of Native American ancestry as the issue continues to dog her Senate reelection campaign, fueled by President Trump mocking her as “Pocahontas.”
Two weeks ago, the Berkshire [Mass.] Eagle urged her to put the issue to rest by taking a test and releasing the results, a suggestion echoed by Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi.
Shiva Ayyadurai, a Senate candidate running as an Independent, sent her DNA kits twice last year, only to have them returned.
Mr. Carr, who first suggested she test her DNA in 2014, pointed out that the Massachusetts Democrat was likely to attend the annual St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in South Boston, adding, “so if someone could grab her water glass.”
Ms. Warren, who is not an enrolled member of any tribe, has pointed to her family lore, saying that being Native American was “part of my story” growing up Oklahoma, but has dodged questions on genetic testing.
“I think this was fully litigated in 2012 here in Massachusetts,” she said in a March 10 interview on public-television station WGBY after being asked whether she would take a DNA test.
SEE ALSO: Elizabeth Warren comes under pressure to settle Cherokee issue by taking DNA test
“The way I see it at the end of the day what the people of Massachusetts said is they care a whole lot more about their families than they did about my background,” she said. “My brothers and I, we grew up in Oklahoma, and we know our story from our mom and our dad and our grandmothers and our grandfather.”
She was recognized as a minority faculty member at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania law schools, leading to accusations that she benefited from minority status, which she has denied.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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