Just a day after news broke that former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann holds Swiss nationality, she has asked officials in the mountainous European country to withdraw her citizenship.
Instead, the Minnesota congresswoman wants to make it clear she is a “proud American citizen,” she said in a statement.
Bachmann claims that she has had dual citizenship since her 1978 marriage, as her husband Marcus is Swiss American. But now she says she has told the Swiss Consulate she wants nothing more to do with the land of Toblerone and cuckoo clocks.
“I took this action because I want to make it perfectly clear: I was born in America and I am a proud American citizen,” she said.
“I am, and always have been, 100 percent committed to our United States Constitution and the United States of America. As the daughter of an Air Force veteran, stepdaughter of an Army veteran, and sister of a Navy veteran, I am proud of my allegiance to the greatest nation the world has ever known.”
She did not explain why she had not renounced her Swiss citizenship earlier, and her office told Politico that she had not declared it when she was running for the Republican nomination for the White House.
A Swiss television station revealed her dual citizenship on Tuesday, claiming she had been granted nationality on March 19. However, Bachmann says she had merely updated her documents.
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