Rep. Anna Paulina Luna accused Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin of assault following a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing where Luna had questioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the activist organization’s alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Luna said Benjamin followed her out of the hearing, berated her, and struck her arm. She summoned Capitol Police, vowed to press charges, and called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to ban Code Pink from Capitol Hill entirely.
“The head honcho of Code Pink here on Capitol Hill decided to try to harass me as I was leaving my hearing with Rubio and smacked my arm. I have no issues answering questions but the moment you touch me you cross a line,” Luna wrote on X.
Luna then called on Johnson to act, writing, “I have asked the Speaker to ban Code Pink. I was just physically hit by their head organizer. This is right after I questioned Secretary Rubio about them. It is time Speaker Johnson ban them.”
She also condemned Democrats in her next tweet: “Why does the Left actively promote, work with, and support radical insurrectionists from Code Pink who are physically assaulting members (myself) on Capitol Hill? Condemning political violence should not be partisan, yet it becomes increasingly clear there is only ONE side that continues to condone it.”
Luna said her staff witnessed the incident and submitted written statements to law enforcement. “After I questioned Secretary Rubio on Code Pink and their ties to the CCP, their organization followed me out, berated me, and then their head person here in DC smacked me. I will be filing charges. Btw these are not ‘allegations’. It happened. My staff was there when it happened and wrote statements for LEO,” she wrote.
Code Pink disagreed with Luna’s version. They shared a video where Benjamin walked with Luna, waved her arms around, but briefly brushed Luna’s arm during an argument.
Luna’s quoted-tweet the video, writing, “Why did you limit comments? Interesting. Bottom line is if I ever put my hand on a Code Pink activist your org would be flipping out. You crossed a personal boundary that should NEVER be crossed. Point blank period. Instead of diverting attention from the real issue take responsibility and own it.”
Luna continued to press her case, tweeting, “Code Pink is a CCP-funded op, and news flash: you don’t get to smack my arm if you don’t like my responses or the fact that I questioned Secretary Rubio about your communist organization. I couldn’t care less how much random Democrats want to defend what happened. You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to hit my arm. You don’t get to come to my office and scream and yell. You can hate my politics all you want, but if you touch me, you cross the line. BTW, Code Pink is awfully quiet about the Uyghur Muslims in China being forced into re-education camps. I wonder why.”
Benjamin offered a sharply different characterization of events. Capitol Police declined to make an arrest after reviewing the video of the encounter. Benjamin also noted that Rep. Maria Salazar grabbed her face with both hands roughly 10 minutes after the Luna encounter, something Benjamin said she did not consider malicious.
“Funny how @RepLuna called the police to arrest me (they didn’t once they saw the video) because she said I touched her arm. 10 minutes later @RepMariaSalazar grabbed my face. I’m not complaining because she didn’t do it maliciously, I’m just pointing out the lunacy of @RepLuna,” Benjamin wrote.
Do you think Rep. Luna was overreacting?
