Scott Brown renews call for Elizabeth Warren to release her personnel records

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) renewed his call for his Democratic opponent, Elizabeth Warren, to release personnel records Monday, arguing that new evidence that she listed herself as a minority faculty member at law schools have made it imperative that Warren come clean.

“Professor Warren likes to talk about accountability, but she has not held herself to that standard,” Brown’s campaign manager, Jim Barnett, said on a conference call with reporters.

{mosads}Brown and Republicans have been relentlessly hitting Warren over a controversy about her claim to Native American heritage and revelations that she listed herself as a minority in faculty directories for almost a decade at schools where she taught. Both Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School both touted Warren as a minority faculty member on reports detailing their progress in recruiting minority professors.

Warren has been unable to provide documentation to back up her claim to be part Native American, but has repeatedly said she never used that claim, long part of her family’s lore, to gain any advantage in her career.

“The question here is not so much about Elizabeth Warren’s credentials as much as it is about Elizabeth Warren’s integrity and truthfulness, and willingness to be transparent,” said Barnett. “There is no evidence that Professor Warren is a Cherokee.”

Warren’s campaign has said Warren is proud of her family’s heritage, and accused Brown of feeding an ugly story and insinuating that she’s not qualified for the positions she has attained because of her gender. 

“At every law school where Elizabeth was recruited to teach, it has been made absolutely clear she was hired based on merit, on her accomplishments and ability,” said Warren spokeswoman Alethea Harney.

At the same time as Barnett was speaking, Democrats held their own call in what appeared to be an attempt to bring attention away from the controversy and refocus the conversation on Brown.

Hoping to tie Brown to the loss of about $2 billion by investment firm JPMorgan Chase, the Massachusetts Democratic Party challenged Brown to release the list of those serving on his New York finance committee, noting that Brown has accepted donations from the bank’s executives in the past. Democrats have argued that Brown’s New York committee is further evidence that he is bankrolled by Wall Street, although it is not unusual for candidates to form committees to coordinate contributions from other areas.

“Scott Brown watered down Wall Street reform just enough so that the same high-rollers who gambled away our economy are right back at it,” said John Walsh, who chairs the state party. “Scott Brown should tell us if people connected to JPMorgan are on his secret Wall Street fundraising committee, because Massachusetts families have a right to know if Scott Brown stands with them or with Wall Street.”

Brown’s campaign dismissed the charge and declined to release names of those on the committee, arguing that Brown discloses everything required about his contributions through Federal Election Commission reports.

But Barnett noted that Brown has already released three decades of his files from the National Guard, and said the campaign would be willing to release additional personnel files if it would persuade Warren to do the same.

“Scott would be happy to release those — especially it it can lend further sunlight as to Warren’s own academic personnel files,” he said.