Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) completely dodged questions from CNN’s Jake Tapper about whether Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) smeared Michigan’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel , in anti-Semitic fashion.
In a fraught exchange on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Tapper confronted the governor about Tlaib’s accusation that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel brought charges against protesters at the University of Michigan solely because they were pro-Palestinian.
“Your State’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel, charged almost a dozen individuals from the University of Michigan over the anti-Israel protests,” Tapper said. “Among the charges: attempted ethnic intimidation, assaulting or obstructing a police officer, and on and on. These are pro-Palestinian protesters who are being punished and prosecuted.
“Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib — who is Palestinian — she called the charges from Nessel, who is Jewish, ‘shameful.’ And Talib said ‘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.’ Nessel responded by saying, ‘Rashida Tlaib should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong.’”