Religious Liberties Commission board member Carrie Prejean Boller on Wednesday dismissed her apparent removal, saying the chairman of the board, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-TX), didn’t have the authority to remove her.
Patrick released a statement on Wednesday announcing that he had removed Prejean Boller over a controversial hearing that he alleged she hijacked for her “own personal and political agenda.” In response, Boller denied that Patrick had the ability to remove her, arguing that only the personal intervention of President Donald Trump himself could.
“As the name states, this is President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, not yours. You did not appoint me to the Commission, and you lack authority to remove me from it,” Prejean Boller said.
“This is a gross overstepping of your role and leads me to believe you are acting in alignment with a Zionist political framework that hijacked the hearing, rather than in defense of religious liberty. We serve as equals on this Commission. Just as I cannot remove you, you cannot remove me,” she added.
After telling Patrick to reread Trump’s executive order, Prejean Boller said it was “clear your actions reflect a Zionist political agenda, not the President’s, not the U.S. Constitution’s, and not the purpose of this Commission.”
“I refuse to bend the knee to Israel. I am no slave to a foreign nation, but to Christ our King,” she concluded.
The crisis on the commission erupted on Monday, when Prejean Boller began making heated inquiries regarding Zionism, antisemitism, and Israel. She openly defended influencer Candace Owens, who has increasingly targeted Israel and many Jewish people as the subject of conspiracy theories, including that many follow a “pedophile-centric religion that believes in demons … [and] child sacrifice.”
When asked, Prejean Boller said she listens to Owens daily and doesn’t believe anything she’s said is antisemitic.
Elsewhere in the hearing, Boller drew flak for pressing Jewish students over their claims of antisemitic experiences after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, and questioned several Jewish people over whether they supported Israel. She received audible boos from the crowd gathered at the Museum of the Bible in Washington.
Calls immediately grew for Prejean Boller to resign, which she rejected.
Her move now puts Trump in an awkward position, possibly forcing him to intervene in a clash between the Zionist and anti-Zionist parts of his base.
Prejean Boller’s relationship with Trump goes back nearly two decades, when she was a beauty pageant contestant. She first achieved fame when she told a questioner at a pageant that she didn’t support gay marriage.
