A damning Washington Post report has questioned several aspects of freshman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-FL) life story, from her religious and ethnic identity to her impoverished upbringing. Luna’s claim that she grew up poor and isolated, with her father in and out of prison, was not supported by two relatives who spoke to the Post. Prison records showed a brief stint in custody. When she served at Whiteman Air Force Base a decade ago, she described herself to friends as alternatively Middle Eastern, Jewish or Eastern European, the Post reported. She identified as white in voting records but, after entering the political sphere around 2019, she legally changed her last name from Mayerhofer to her Hispanic mother’s family name of Luna and began identifying as Hispanic. Her claim to have a Messianic Jewish father was also disputed by three relatives and immigration records that indicated Luna’s paternal grandfather was a reluctant soldier in the Nazi regime. Her of-repeated story of enduring a traumatizing “home invasion” at Whiteman was also undercut by police records. Luna’s office declined to address the allegations to the Post. In a tweet on Friday, Luna wrote, “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. This is comical.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect The Washington Post’s revised information on Luna’s voting records.
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