Elizabeth Warren’s claims her belief of her Cherokee heritage comes from longstanding family lore. Inconveniently asks Michael Brendan Dougherty in NRO, was Ms. Warren perpetrating racial fraud? Was Warren being racially dishonest so she would not be cast as just another privileged white woman? Not only did Warren participate in the “cringe-inducing” Pow Wow Chow cookbook, but Warren also plagiarized her recipe from a French cookbook.

Boston Radio Host Howie Carr: Three Recipes Plagiarized?

Ms. Warren’s instructions are word-for-word copies of (Pierre) Franey’s 1979 instructions for this recipe, with one exception. Ms. Warren says, “Let cook until firm and lightly brown…” and Mr. Franey says “Let cook until firm and lightly browned…” [emphasis added] …

Cherokee Indian Is a Specific, Legally Defined Identity

Cherokee Indian is not so much a “socially constructed” racial category as a specific, legally defined identity, continues Mr. Dougherty.

You are a Cherokee when the Cherokee nation recognizes you as a member on its rolls. Surely someone who identified as a Native American academically and socially in the way Warren once claimed she did would have sought such official status. But she didn’t.

From The Boston Herald, 27 April 2012:

(I)n the late 1990s Harvard Law School had touted Elizabeth Warren as being a Native American faculty member.

On May 1, 2012, according to a Boston Herald article,^[1] the Warren Campaign offered evidence ^[2] it said supported Ms. Warren’s claim of Native American ancestry.

The first piece of evidence was a statement by genealogist Chris Child of the New England Historic Genealogical Society that Warren might be 1/32 Cherokee.

Withdrawn from Lack of Evidence

That claim, based on a type of documentation^, which did not exist at the time in question, later was withdrawn as lacking any evidence.

Read more here.