The Washington Post published a detailed new report on Friday cataloging the multiple ways in which Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a far-right freshman who opposed Kevin McCarthy for 11 speakership ballots, has apparently lied about her background.
The Post writes that Luna, who is the first Mexican American woman to represent her state, “described herself as alternately Middle Eastern, Jewish or Eastern European” when she was in the Air Force a little more than a decade ago. “She would really change who she was based on what fit the situation best at the time,” said her former roommate Brittany Brooks.
Luna, who identifies as a Christian, has used her supposed Jewish ancestry to shield allies like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from charges of antisemitism even though several relatives told the Post that, not only was the congresswoman raised Catholic, but her grandfather had served in Nazi Germany's armed forces.
“MTG did endorse me, and I was raised as a Messianic Jew by my father,” Luna told Jewish Insider just before Election Day, adding, “I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi. If she were antisemitic, why did she endorse me.” Mainstream Jewish denominations do not recognize “Messianic Jews,” including organizations like “Jews for Jesus,” as Jewish, and the Post's report did not confirm any Jewish heritage on Luna's part.
Rather, Luna’s mother described the congresswoman’s late father, George Mayerhofer, as a “Christian that embraced the Messianic faith,” while extended family members said they believed he was a Catholic. Luna’s campaign biography says that Mayerhofer “spent time in and out of incarceration” while they lived in California through her teenage years, and mostly communicated with him “through letters to jail and collect calls.” However, the paper couldn’t find any record of him being charged with any felony or serving any prison time in the state.
The article also digs into Luna’s 2019 assertion that she survived a 4 A.M. “home invasion” while in the military. Brooks, though, said the only relevant incident she could recall was a break-in that happened when neither of them were home.
Luna, who refused to speak to the paper, responded to the story by tweeting, “Holy shit the Washington post just tried to claim my dad was never incarcerated, left out comments from my mom, said I was a registered Democrat, and did not report a convo they had with a former roommate, and interviewed ‘family’ I don’t talk to.” (The paper initially reported she’d registered to vote as a Democrat in 2017 while living in Washington state, a detail it corrected Friday afternoon; the update explained, “Washington state only requires voters to declare their party affiliation when they cast a ballot in a presidential primary.”) She went on to share a tweet from an Air Force colleague claiming that Brooks was lying about the break-in.
Luna unsuccessfully campaigned against Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist in 2020, but she won the race to succeed him last year after the GOP's new gerrymander transformed Florida’s 13th District from a 51-47 Biden constituency to one Trump would have taken 53-46. The DCCC, notably, felt so pessimistic about Democrat Eric Lynn’s prospects against her in 2022 that it did not release an opposition research document about Luna.
Lynn and his allies, including a super PAC funded by his cousin, attacked Luna’s ardent opposition to abortion rights, but they did not focus on her apparent lies about her past. Lynn could not overcome the difficult lean of the revamped district, as well as the GOP’s strong showing across the state, and Luna went on to win this St. Petersburg-area seat 53-45.
