Elizabeth Warren Releases DNA Test Results

The results point to "strong evidence" that she had a Native American ancestor six to 10 generations ago, according to an expert.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) made public the results of a DNA test on Monday, which an expert said shows “strong evidence’’ that she has a Native American ancestor.

Warren provided the test results to The Boston Globe on Sunday, the newspaper said, “in an effort to defuse questions about her ancestry that have persisted for years.” The disclosure is another strong sign that she is seriously considering running for president, according to the publication.

“The vast majority” of Warren’s ancestry is European but “the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor” six to 10 generations ago, according to Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor who analyzed the results.

This means she could be just 1/1,024th Native American if the ancestor is 10 generations back, the Globe said.

She possesses 12 times more Native American blood than a white person from Great Britain, the report found, and 10 times more than a white person from Utah.

President Donald Trump has long mocked her for claiming Native American ancestry, frequently calling her “Pocahontas.” He even offered to administer a DNA test to prove her otherwise, promising to donate $1 million to a charity of her choice if she agreed.

“I’m going to get one of those little kits, and in the middle of the debate, when she proclaims that she’s of Indian heritage because her mother says she has high cheekbones, we will take that little kit,” Trump said at a rally in July. “But we have to do it gently because we’re in the Me Too generation, so we have to be very gentle.”

Warren seized on the proposition, asking the president to donate the $1 million to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, a nonprofit that seeks to protect Native American women from violence. She also reminded him that he still hasn’t released his tax returns.

“What are YOU hiding?” she tweeted at Trump.

Warren’s campaign released a video Sunday featuring interviews with many of Warren’s former bosses and colleagues, all of whom assert that her heritage never played a role in her hiring. The White House had previously said Warren had used her background as a way of advancing her career.

In the video, Warren also denounced Trump’s purposes for continuing to elevate the issue.

“Trump can say whatever he wants about me, but mocking Native Americans or any group in order to try and get at me ― that’s not what America stands for,” Warren said.

This article has been updated with Warren’s tweet to Trump.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article cited The Boston Globe’s erroneous math about Warren’s ancestry and has been updated to reflect the Globe’s correction. If Warren is 10th-generation Native American, that makes her 1/1,024 Native.

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