A Republican congresswoman is trying to claim she was assaulted when an activist brushed her arm.
On Wednesday, Representative Anna Paulina Luna complained on X, “The head honcho of CodePink 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 posted. She said she gave a statement to Capitol Police and would be filing charges.
But TMZ posted video of the incident, and it shows Medea Benjamin, the head of CodePink, walking alongside Luna outside of the House Rayburn Office Building and only lightly brushing her arm, to which Luna reacted angrily.
TMZ obtained video of the incident from CODEPINK, where Rep. Luna says a protester assaulted her. https://t.co/2KUdC4XhxN pic.twitter.com/6IDPX9SYjd
— TMZ (@TMZ) June 3, 2026
In a series of posts on X, Luna attacked the organization for being funded by the Chinese Communist Party and for crossing “a personal boundary that should NEVER be crossed.” In the comments, multiple X users, including Benjamin, mocked Luna for dramatizing the incident.
CodePink posted that Benjamin had been detained by Capitol Police but later released, and called out the Trump administration’s wars against Cuba and the Middle East.
Today, a congresswoman lied to have CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin detained by Capitol Police.
Why? To try to silence our work against U.S. wars in the Middle East and sanctions on Cuba.
Instead of defending these wildly unpopular policies, members of Congress target the… pic.twitter.com/h8DW0v52rg
— CODEPINK (@codepink) June 3, 2026
