Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty
Freshman Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, the newest conservative firebrand from Florida, is getting a lot of attention on the heels ofRep. George Santos' political unraveling, afterThe Washington Postbegan questioningthe veracity of her backstory as well.
Luna declined to be interviewed for thePost’s article. Her communications director, Edie Heipel, says, “We did not feel that this was an interview. It was an accusatory and disturbing slant of Rep. Luna’s life. … We did not proceed to grant [the reporter] an interview because it was clear based on her text receipts with others that she was not being honest. She had an agenda and you saw that in how the piece was written.” ThePostmostly relied on former friends and estranged family members as sources, with some counter-context from Luna’s mother, Monica Luna.
A spokesperson for thePostdefends its sourcing to PEOPLE, saying, “This was a deeply reported story about Rep. Luna’s biography and included ample perspectives from people who have known her throughout her life.”
Here are the major claims made in the recentWashingtonPostexposé and Luna’s responses.
Anna Luna rallies with fellow far-right lawmakers, including Reps. Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz, between votes for House speaker.Anna Moneymaker/Getty
Claim: Luna made conflicting statements about her heritage, including that she’s Jewish
Friends at Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force base, where Luna was stationed for a time, toldThe Washington Postthat she would alternate between calling herself Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Jewish. PEOPLE sought an explanation for her claiming to be Jewish, which is themost reminiscent of Rep. Santos' controversiesand the one members of the public have focused in on.
Luna also says her DNA test shows she is a fraction Ashkenazi Jewish.
Claim: Luna had a grandfather who fought with Nazis in WWII
While questioning Luna’s Jewish ties, thePostreported that her grandfather fought in Nazi Germany under Hitler’s rule.
Monica admits that it appears true, based on an old photo his relatives furnished to thePostof him in a German military uniform. She notes that Luna also had two great-grandfathers who fought in WWII for the United States, providing PEOPLE an image of one in uniform and an old newspaper clipping as corroboration.
Claim: Luna only recently embraced her Mexican heritage, including changing her last name, pronouncing her first name differently and openly identifying as Hispanic
Luna’s late father, George, was of Mexican and German descent and spoke Spanish and English. Her mother’s parents were Mexican American. Though Luna was born Anna Paulina Mayerhofer, she has used multiple surnames since.
In 2019, Monica began making plans to adopt her mother’s family name, Luna, after going through a divorce. The future congresswoman followed suit, arguing in a petition at the time that she wanted to both represent her Hispanic heritage and share a name with her mom. By 2020, both of their name changes had been formalized.
Monica toldTheWashington Postin their initial story that she has always known her daughter to embrace her Hispanic side, as well as her American side, hence why there may be discrepancies in how she’s identified or presented herself previously.
“I am bi-cultural,” Luna tells PEOPLE. “I hate being forced to choose.”
Kevin Dietsch/Getty
Claim: There’s no record of Luna’s father being incarcerated
Luna has claimed that her father, George, was in and out of incarceration while she was growing up, and that she had to communicate with him through letters and collect calls. ThePostreached out to the Orange County Corrections Department and the Santa Ana jail, and reported that no record of incarceration could be found.
Luna’s mother refutes thePost’s reporting on their family dynamic, saying that she and Luna were in fact financially unstable with little help from extended family. Monica had Luna at age 20, and says she was also responsible for two younger brothers of her own. A year later Monica’s mother, a long-time heroin addict, died of cancer and was HIV positive, according to Monica. She says her maternal uncles and her stepfather were also using heroin and died.
Monica says she enrolled at the University of California, Irvine, to get affordable student housing, and never married Luna’s father, who she says was addicted to methamphetamine and eventually lived in his vehicle.
“If [those relatives] really were close family,” Luna tells PEOPLE, “why didn’t they help my dad?”
Monica says that Luna’s father neglected to pay child support, and part of his small inheritance when his father died was garnished. “It was not a large amount to begin with,” she says. “A huge chunk went to the Department of Child Support.”
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Service members at Whiteman Air Force Base also told thePostthat they got the impression Luna came from a well-off family, claiming that she wore designer clothing and mentioned having nannies as a child.
Monica says her daughter was proud of a designer coat she bought at a thrift store and was known to wear it frequently, and that the idea of them having nannies is “preposterous.”
Anna Paulina Luna, 2020.Chris O’Meara/AP/Shutterstock
Claim: Luna fabricated a story about a home invasion during her time in the Air Force
ThePostspoke with Luna’s off-base roommate at the time she was stationed in Missouri to ask about Luna’s past claims that a man once broke into their apartment at 4 a.m. — and not “to see how I was doing.” While telling the story in 2019, Luna expressed gratitude that her male friend was there to protect her.
The roommate told thePostthat she only recalled a daytime break-in when Luna wasn’t home, and thePost’s initial report erroneously noted that Luna wasn’t mentioned in the police report that followed. (The outlet has since corrected the mistake.)
Claim: Luna expressed support for then-President Barack Obama in 2008, then took a hard-right political turn in recent years
Luna, whose current political views largely oppose Obama’s, tells PEOPLE that she did express support for him, but was never a Democrat and didn’t vote for him. “I liked him because he talked like me,” she says. “We need legal immigration done the right way. It’s not xenophobic. Illegal immigrants are sold into slavery. It’s a massive issue with Hispanic women and children — and even men. They are used for labor and sex trafficking.”
The same Air Force roommate who accused Luna of lying about a past home invasion also told thePostthat she would have described Luna as a liberal, while others who knew her reportedly called her apolitical.
Known today as a self-described “pro-life extremist” who opposes “radical left-wing gender theory,” props up Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and has been photographed wearing a rifle-shaped pin on the job to make clear her stance on the Second Amendment, Luna — who won 53% of the vote in her district in the 2022 election — stands behind her staunchly conservative views and has kept company with Reps.Lauren Boebert,Matt Gaetzand Santos himself since joining Congress in January.
source: people.com
