Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna has been accused of falsely claiming Jewish heritage and may have had a grandfather who fought for the Nazis, according to reports.
Luna is being called the 'new George Santos” after relatives disputed her claims of her father’s Jewish background and it was pointed out that her identification as Hispanic doesn’t fit with her voter registration as “White, not of Hispanic origin” as recently as 2015.
Santos, the embattled Republican House member from Long Island, has been steadfast in his refusal to resign after multiple allegations against him, including lying about being of Jewish heritage.
Luna was the subject of a Washington Post report that also contradicted her claim in a November Jewish Insider interview in which she said her father raised her as Messianic Jew and that she was a “small fraction Ashkenazi.”
In the interview she defended her endorsement by controversial GOP lawmaker Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), stating: "I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi. If she were antisemitic, why did she endorse me?"
But in the Post report, three of her relatives said that her father George Mayerhofer was Catholic. They also said that he never practiced Judaism or belonged to a Messianic Jewish group.
Luna’s mother, Monica Luna, told the news outlet that Mayerhofer was a practicing Christian who "embraced the Messianic faith" and was "buried him to Jewish customs,” which would imply he was a member of a Christian group that practiced some Jewish traditions.
A review of immigration records by the Post also found that Luna’s paternal grandfather Heinrich Mayerhofer listed his religion as Roman Catholic upon immigrating from Germany to Canada in 1954.
Family members who were contacted by the news outlet stated that he had served in Nazi Germany’s military in the 1940s. But one relative, Jolanta Mayerhofer, stressed that he was conscripted and had no choice in the matter.
On Saturday, Luna’s spokesperson released a statement to the Insider accusing it of "religious shaming" and "minority-shaming” and claiming the article had a "prejudiced tone" because of its questions regarding the lawmaker's family background.