Exclusive-With Updates: Did the Spirit of George Santos Infiltrate AFSC? Did They Hire an Impostor for the Top DEI Job?

With New Updates as of May 12, 2024

[Scroll down for updates]

I talked with Hector Cortez on Wednesday [February 15, 2023]. He’s the Associate General Secretary of AFSC, Number Two in their top leadership. He was upset. And he told me nothing.

Well, almost nothing. It was the  Can’t-confirm-or-deny kind of nothing.

More precisely, to quote, the “I-Can’t-respond-to-any-inquiries-about-this-matter” sort of “nothing.”

And “On-the-instruction-of-our-legal-counsel” variety of nothing.

Plus the “But-we’re-working-on-it,” and will-have-something-to-say-publicly-about-it-sometime, manner of nothing.

Which adds up to a pretty convincing tell that it really is something, and indeed something big.

“Would AFSC  say something in the not too distant future?” I asked.  Another noncommittal response.

Which to me clearly means, there’s something to what I was calling about. Lawyers are involved; AFSC headquarters is not only clammed up, but feeling pressured and chagrined about it; and as of today, it’s not resolved.

So, you may ask, what is “it”?

“It” is an anonymous “Open Letter” [hereafter OL] posted publicly on the internet, alleging that a new addition to AFSC’s “leadership team” is an impostor. A fake.

[Updates – May 12, 2024: The original “Open Letter” post was later taken down and is “under investigation”, but has been reconstructed here, for reference.

Further, someone — or many someones — seem suddenly to be very interested in this post, as of May 12, 2024, which was almost fifteen months after this blog posted the first online notice of the “Saraswati incident.”

As of late afternoon May 12, ’24, there were almost 140 “hits” on this one blog post today. That’s considerably more than the overall daily total of blog hits for most days so far this month; and it’s just a few days short of a full year since the last time Saraswati was mentioned here. It reminds me of the climactic line from the old Bob Dylan song, Ballad of  Thin Man:

‘Cause something is happening here
And you don’t know what it is,
Do you, Mister Jones?

Well my name’s not Jones, I’m not exactly thin, and you wouldn’t want me to break out in ballads. But something is definitely happening here, and I don’t know what it is . . . . Now back to the original post]:

The staffer accused is  Raquel Evita Saraswati. Or at least, that is the name she currently goes by.

On her Facebook page she identifies as an observant Muslim, part Arab, and Queer, with Latin connections as well.

The OL asserts that her original name was Rachel Elizabeth Seidel, and claims that unnamed family members insist that they and she are of all European heritage with no Arab or Muslim background.

A blogger’s note here: I am uncomfortable using a document from unnamed sources. If it came with no backup, I could understand why AFSC, or I for that matter, could simply toss it away as trolling.

Besides which, I have no particular interest in who AFSC hires for its staff positions, beyond a frequently-repeated complaint that almost none are actually part of the Religious Society of Friends. Seidel/Saraswati apparently continues this tradition of no Quaker connections; but that’s not the point here.

The unnamed authors “explain” their ploy thus: “We are a group of individuals who care deeply about AFSC and have chosen to remain anonymous for protection from any potential retaliation.”

That statement turns my suspicion antennae toward staff, where “retaliation” would have teeth: people who have jobs and paychecks at risk for mounting such an ouster attempt. (Some readers will remember the case of former staffer Lucy Duncan, who openly mounted a coup attempt aimed at AFSC’s top leadership in early 2022, to stop a planned restructure; she was suspended in hours, fired and gone in barely two weeks.) If the writers were Board or committee members, though, it would not cost them anything to be bumped from such slots.

Moreover, AFSC officials should be used to mere trolling, including partisan political attacks. Most such can be shrugged off or ignored; AFSC has long been good at that.

Nevertheless I have checked a number of the many links in the OL, and they held up. My sense is that enough of the others may hold up to have evoked the sense of defensive alarm in Hector Cortez’s official non-responses.

However, the OL insists that “While there is ample evidence of her European roots, Saraswati’s family members have confirmed that she does not have South Asian, Latinx, or Arab heritage.” It does not identify any “family members”; and quotes her as saying she has been estranged from her family for some time.  It adds that her claim to be a woman of color is only based on  “shades of bronzer she applies to her face [which] have become darker over time.”

That is, she’s a fake “woman of color.” Is she also a “fake ” Muslim? Or faking being Queer?

Or is it a question of what the OL’s authors regard as “fake” (or the wrong) Muslim politics?

The text strongly suggests this latter is quite significant, perhaps more  important than her bronzer use.

Numerous links in the OL  check out to corroborate its assertions that between 2001 until sometime after 2012 Seidel/Saraswati was frequently and visibly involved with politically right-wing (in current American terms) groups which were very vocally opposed to “political” and “jihadi” Islam. There are references to video interviews with her on Fox News, Newsmax and with Glenn Beck on CNN.

One major figure in these groups is Zuhdi Jasser, a cardiologist based in Phoenix, Arizona. Jasser is a practicing Muslim, who is also strongly nationalist American in politics, has organized or been the most visible figure in a number of very conservative  groups, such as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AFID), and the Clarion Fund. His frequent targets include many of what are regarded as mainstream Muslim associations, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America, and others.

Jasser argues that they are influenced or used by jihadists who want to undermine the separation of church and state (and the separation of Mosque and state). He is a strong supporter of Israel, insists that all Muslims should recognize and accept Israel, and inoculate American Muslim communities against any sympathy for “Islamism.”

As late as 2012, Saraswati was active in AFID; when Jasser published his first book, A Battle for the Soul of Islam, Saraswati not only attended a book launch party, but also took the photos for AFID’s website.The more links I followed, the more another dimension came into view: a deep political divide among American Muslims. In the 2020 presidential election, 64% of Muslim voters cast ballots for Joe Biden. But 35% went for Trump.

Biden’s 29-point margin among Muslims was a landslide; but 35% for Trump is more than one-third. As a delicatessen adage puts it, “That ain’t chopped liver.”

While AFSC is an officially nonpartisan nonprofit, the political views projected from virtually all its programs and vocal staff are far to the left. Further, among those I am familiar with,  AFSC is one of the most fixated on a long list of “anti-racist” mandates, concerning race, sex, gender, age, vocabulary, pronouns and so forth, which all staff and committee members are continually exhorted to take into account in the course of every decision and action.

It is not hard to imagine some of its staff finding the twisting course of Seidel/Saraswati’s identity as falling drastically short on many of these counts, and tough to pick the most salient. (The bronzer? Northern European ancestry? Being the “wrong” kind of Muslim?)

Or something else? The OL text ends with a series of questions, one of which is: “Are there external entities with whom Saraswati is collaborating?”

Something similar popped up in my reading of the OL, seeing the extent of how the earlier Seidel identity had been “scrubbed” from social media and replaced with another. Further, in an employment summary on a reportedly abandoned LinkedIn page, Saraswati said she was a fulltime freelance DEI consultant from 2009 to “the present” in 2022, and the location for this work was simply “Global.”

Here one can only speculate, but this is at least adjacent to the turf of the intelligence world: spy agencies often create false identities, including biographical “legends” for agents. Many of those working under cover, particularly those working in the Washington Beltway region, are not engaged in novelistic derring-do; they could even be indistinguishable from the tens of thousands of other government clerks, which in fact they are.

Many agencies, foreign as well as the CIA, operate front companies which do one thing in their visible day-to-day operations, and then something entirely other behind the scenes. (Late in my working years, I helped investigate one such company, Aero Contractors in Smithfield NC, which was a cover for planes that took part in the Iraq War torture program. Yet most of Aero’s 100-plus employees were office or aircraft maintenance workers, who lived at home, shopped and went to church like anyone else, and simply kept their mouths shut about work.)

Seidel/Saraswati’s rewriting of her identity could fit a similar profile. But then what, I wonder, does AFSC have that a spy agency, foreign or domestic, wants to uncover and purloin? Government secrets?

Not likely, unless a few cartons of classified files fell off a truck with a busted GPS trying to find Mar-al-Lago. What about their plans for rebuilding a huge new antiwar-leftist movement like the one AFSC was a key leader of in the good old Vietnam days? Or maybe the secret plans for an even more all-encompassing maze of identity tests and seminars?

Well, as someone recently said, I can’t confirm or deny any of that.  But it sounds like, when AFSC gets around to saying something, some names on their organizational chart could well be shuffled or deleted, and maybe not only Saraswati.

But her departure is certainly what the OL authors want. They closed their text with questions that were more like demands, including:

Given Quaker testimonies, and the commitment to integrity, will Saraswati continue to represent AFSC?

Should this position, with tremendous power to lead DEI initiatives with the organization, instead be assigned to a desiring and qualified person of color?

How long will it take before Saraswati steps down from her current role?

I’m not familiar with any Quaker testimony on bronzers.  And “integrity” is as applicable to those making this effort to defenestrate a sitting employee as their target.

UPDATE #1: 1:15PM Feb.16, 2023

So the OL has at least an initial answer: No comment yet from AFSC headquarters. However, it appears the axe has fallen and the scrubbing has commenced:

On the “About AFSC” webpage it still says:

 

 

 

But pressing the link results in:

 

 

And on the AFSC all-site search:

 

 

 

 

Still, on her Facebook page, a pinned post remains at the top:

 

 

 

My phone isn’t ringing. But I expect Philadelphia will be calling soon, right?

UPDATE #2–Friday Feb. 17, 2023 – 2PM EST

Still no further information from AFSC HQ. And the online information above is now more intriguing:
— First, the above “pinned post” which was on Saraswati’s Facebook page yesterday, extolling “the best job ever” is now gone. But

— Second, on the AFSC’s website, which yesterday returned the above screenshot of “0” [as in Zero] search results for Saraswati, now lists “1”, which goes to a profile page about Saraswati as DEI Director.

So is she still at AFSC, or not? I’ve left messages seeking clarification, with no response.

But I have heard plausible rumors, which while unconfirmed are more than idle speculation, along these lines: there is high-level division in AFSC about Saraswati and her fate. Further, she is not the only target for the OL authors: they are reported to be aiming above her as well, at Joyce Aljouny, AFSC’s #1 as General Secretary, who is said to be backing Saraswati.

Why might Aljouny back Saraswati? It could in part be cultural: as her AFSC profile states:

A Palestinian American, Joyce started her career working in international development in Palestine, focusing on minority and refugee rights, gender equality, economic development, and humanitarian support. . . . Prior to joining AFSC, Joyce served as the director of the Ramallah Friends School, a leading K-12 Quaker school in Palestine . . . .

The Ramallah Friends School is a bit of a misnomer: founded by Quaker missionaries in the late 19th century, and operated in coordination with successor American Quaker agencies. The Quakers involved were strongly Christian, often evangelical; but the student body is mainly Muslim, and they study Islam, with no attempt to convert them.

Joyce Aljouny is a Quaker, but of Palestine heritage (and why not? Palestine is Christianity’s original homeland, after all). Her career both before and during her time as head of the Ramallah Friends School involved working closely and ecumenically, with many Muslims and Islamic groups. It is a reasonable speculation that she might identify with a high-ranking AFSC executive who is both Muslim and female.

In a post on the situation by The Intercept, which appeared a few hours after my post went up, an AFSC staffer described as a “spokesperson” for the “leadership team” [aka AFSC’s top executives] passed on a statement that said, in part:

“AFSC has given Raquel the opportunity to address the allegations against her, and Raquel stands by her identity. Raquel also assures us that she remains loyal to AFSC’s mission, which we firmly believe.” 

“Firmly believe”? That’s in direct opposition to the thrust of the OL. Is the “leadership team” facing off against another round of rebellion?

I wonder though: what does it mean that Saraswati “stands by her identity.” Certainly people sometimes change their names, for non-nefarious reasons. They also change religions.

Hey I did the latter, and I “stand by” it too.  But my previous Catholic upbringing and personal exodus are by no means erased. If anyone is interested, they are discussed briefly here, and at more length here.) One could easily “believe” persons could “stand by” such moves.

But meticulously erasing an earlier identity is not only a challenge to do, it’s also tough to justify. And Saraswati’s LinkedIn summary screenshot in the OL has a long stretch (a decade-plus) of chronology in when she claims to have been a fulltime DEI consultant, and the location was simply “Global.”

I’ve prepared and evaluated resumes professionally, and such gaps and vagueness are glaring red flags. They bring up and make pressing words like, “external entitles and “collaboration.”

In any event, the struggle over Saraswati as DEI director appears not to be over, and its ramifications may well go beyond her and that position. If I get any better answers, they’ll be passed along ASAP.