While Claiming Jewish Heritage, Anna Paulina Luna Forgot to Mention Her Nazi Grandfather

Since it first came out last December that newly elected lawmaker George Santos had lied about roughly 99% of his biography, fresh falsehoods and cons involving the New York congressman have emerged on a near-daily, sometimes hourly basis. (The latest? That he apparently fabricated an entire exchange with Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and was charged with theft in 2017 after someone wrote about $15,000 worth of bad checks in his name to a bunch of dog breeders. While the charge was dropped and the case was expunged, the lawyer who represented him now says she believes he did it.) Given the pace with which these revelations have unfolded, and the sheer volume of lies, it seems unlikely at this time that any of Santos’s Republican colleagues will be able to outdo him when it comes to apparently never telling the truth about anything. But at least one is trying!

We speak, of course, of Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who was the subject of a Washington Post exposé that suggested the 33-year-old Florida lawmaker has played it fast and loose with the facts concerning her background. For instance, claiming to both have Jewish heritage and to have been raised as a Jew, despite people familiar with the matter saying that was not the case.

Per the Post:

Luna also stated on the campaign trail and in an interview with Jewish Insider in November that while she identifies as Christian, she was “raised as a Messianic Jew by her father.” Messianic Jews identify as Jewish and say they believe that Jesus is the Messiah. “I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi,” she added, referring to Jews whose ancestors lived in Central or Eastern Europe. Luna’s mother said her father was a “Christian that embraced the Messianic faith.”

“He eventually got clean and started attending a messianic Jewish church in Orange County. He brought Anna to services and she buried him to Jewish customs,” Monica Luna wrote in a text.

However, three members of Luna’s extended family said that her father was Catholic, and that they were not aware of him practicing any form of Judaism while Luna was growing up. George Mayerhofer’s father, Heinrich Mayerhofer, immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1954 and identified as Roman Catholic, according to an immigration record reviewed by the Post.

Another strange thing about Luna‘s claims re: Judaism? The bit about her grandfather having reportedly been a Nazi. Here’s the Post again:

According to several family members, Heinrich Mayerhofer, who died in 2003, served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany when he was a teenager in the 1940s. One of his sons, Edward Mayerhofer—Luna’s uncle—provided the Post what he said was a portrait of Heinrich Mayerhofer dressed in a uniform as a young soldier in Germany. Experts from the Simon Wiesenthal Center who reviewed the photo confirmed the uniform was consistent with that of a member of the Wehrmacht, which was the armed forces of Nazi Germany.

Edward’s wife, Jolanta Mayerhofer, and daughter, Nicole Mayerhofer, both confirmed to the Post that Luna’s grandfather had fought for the Nazis. (According Nicole Mayerhofer, her relationship with Luna went south after her father “publicly raised inconsistencies in Luna’s biography on social media during her first bid for Congress,” which Luna responded to by filing a stalking injunction against him, according to the Post.)

Of the many lies Santos has told, one of them involves passing himself off as Jewish and having grandparents who fled the Holocaust. (The New York lawmaker has insisted he never said he was Jewish but simply “Jew-ish.”)

Other inconsistencies raised by the Post article about Luna include a story about a home invasion that her roommate at the time says was a break-in when Luna wasn’t home; conflicting accounts about whether her father did time in prison; and the circumstances of her upbringing, which family members say was not the impoverished and isolated one Luna has claimed.

The congresswoman‘s office did not answer a detailed list of questions posed by the Post; her communications director emailed the outlet saying the questions were “bizarre,” adding, “Our office will not be responding to you any further.” On Twitter on Friday, Luna insisted that aspects of the Post story are not accurate (she does not appear to have specifically responded to the reporting about her grandfather and her supposed upbringing—and heritage—as a Jew).