Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) slammed Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) this week for attacking her faith by suggesting she could not be fair in prosecuting far-Left pro-Hamas activists who were criminally charged for their activities at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Nessel’s remarks during a Monday interview on CNN came after her office charged 11 individuals with a variety of crimes, including attempted ethnic intimidation, assaulting or obstructing a police officer, and more.
Tlaib responded by claiming that Nessel, who is Jewish, charged the students because she was biased in favor of Israel. “It seems that the attorney general decided, if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs,” Tlaib claimed.
CNN’s Jake Tapper said that Tlaib did not accept an interview request on his show and refused to answer follow-up questions about her remarks.
“For her to say that I could handle a litany of other cases, and that was fine, but when it comes to anything involving pro-Palestinian protesters, I could not be fair, I could not be objective,” Nessel said, “Clearly, she’s referencing my religion as to why she thinks I can’t be fair.”
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“She also mischaracterized the charges and I think intentionally, I mean, she talked about this being peaceful protesters,” she continued. “No peaceful protesters were charged in this event. And, you know, Rashida is a lawyer. She had every opportunity to call me to ask to see the evidence in this case, but she didn’t do that.”
Nessel said that Tlaib “is well known for making inflammatory and incendiary remarks that are anti-Semitic in nature. So this isn’t the first time that we would have heard these words out of her mouth.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) says that Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) accused her of bias in prosecuting students because she is Jewish.
Nessel says that Tlaib is “anti-Semitic” and says she “intentionally” lied about what the charges were that the students face pic.twitter.com/NZsqEXthhd
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Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) refused to back up Nessel during a CNN interview with Tapper on Sunday, saying: “I’m not going to get in the middle of this argument that they’re having.”
After seeing the widespread backlash she faced online, Whitmer finally stood up to Tlaib on Monday but did not call out Tlaib by name.
“The suggestion that Attorney General Nessel would make charging decisions based on her religion as opposed to the rule of law is antisemitic,” Whitmer said. “Attorney General Nessel has always conducted her work with integrity and followed the rule of law. We must all use our platform and voices to call out hateful rhetoric and racist tropes.”
