Elizabeth Warren was doing a victory dance about her DNA test showing "strong evidence" she may have 1/1,024 or 0.09 percent Native American lineage.  In hot pursuit, she called on President Trump to "pay up" with his $1 million offer to the charity of her choice for taking the DNA test he said he would toss to her at a future presidential debate, earlier.  As the network press admiringly gushed about the whole "gotcha," she was convinced she had him cornered.

Well, sorry – that debate hasn't happened yet, and now it's doubtful that it ever will, because Warren is hearing from the leaders of the Cherokee nation.

Here is their astonishing rebuke to her for what they rightly view as a shabby little publicity stunt at their expense:

A Cherokee Nation official rebuked Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts after a DNA test report published Monday asserted there is evidence to "strong support" Warren's claim to have Native American ancestors.

Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. called the test cited by Warren's report "useless" in determining tribal citizenship and alleged she was "undermining tribal interests" with her "continued claims of tribal heritage."

"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," Hoskin said in a statement.

"Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong[,]" Hoskin added.  "It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its [sic] legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven."

They are right to be angry.

The Cherokee nation is likely inundated with white wannabes who keep claiming membership in their much admired tribe.  There's a reason the Stanford professor friend of hers, who did the DNA test, was unable to compare Warren's genome to a genuine Cherokee genome and had to use a Latin American one instead as an approximation: the Native Americans don't want that out there.  They don't like whites manipulating it to claim membership, because they already know who their members are.  If they did, they'd have every idiot out there claiming to have Cherokee blood and a claim on Cherokee tribal membership.  Fake Indian and leftist Ward Churchill would be the first in line after Warren.

The Cherokees rightly read the whole thing as a quest by Warren for their political imprimatur to advance her ambitions, which they aren't about to give, particularly given Warren's famous indifference to standing up for their interests.

Be sure to read the whole thing, because it quotes other Native American leaders who consider Warren's behavior during the whole brouhaha as self-serving in the extreme.

It's not just the Cherokees who are disgusted.  Leftish Simon Moya-Smith, a Native American member of the Oglala-Lakota tribe, had some harsh words for her, too:

Warren claims now to have Native American heritage. And her claim to having such heritage – versus a claim of actually being Native – feels sneaky to me.  Where has she been on these many issues that plague our communities?  Although the results from her DNA test are new, her identity claims here aren't.  Why has she ignored us for so long?  Why only now come around?  This latest disclosure lets her save face without having responsibilities to the Native community she's claiming to share heritage with.  Furthermore, name me one nation or tribe that claims her.  None do.

It's obvious to anyone with eyes in their [sic] sockets or brains in their heads [sic]: because Warren needs our stamp of approval and our vote as she contemplates a potential presidential run.  That's why.

With the Native Americans weighing in, it's increasingly obvious that Warren falsely assumed their identity to secure plum university jobs at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, and it came at their expense.  No yelling to Trump to "pay up" is going to cover that hard fact up.

Far from Trump paying up, the Cherokees show that it's Elizabeth Warren who needs to pay up.  She's now exposed as a fraud, and her career is going to take a hit.

Image credit: ElizabethforMA via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.