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The Republican congresswoman tasked with revisiting “federal secrets” surrounding the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. — and Jeffrey Epstein’s so-called “client list” — is amongst a brand new class of GOP insurgents and Donald Trump loyalists who not too long ago floated a invoice to place Trump’s face on Mount Rushmore.
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a member of the far-right Home Freedom Caucus who was elected to the Home in 2022, has repeatedly pushed for “transparency” in federal authorities — particularly, to dive into conspiracy theories surrounding unidentified flying objects, the origins of COVID-19, and the September 11 assaults, all of which can be on the heart of her activity pressure.
“The federal government has been hiding information from Americans for decades,” she mentioned in an announcement Tuesday.
The federal government has spent years investigating political assassinations and “other government secrets without success,” she claimed, and “it is time to give Americans the answers they deserve.”
The Unbiased has requested extra remark from Luna.
Earlier than her election to Congress — the place she’s one among a bunch of MAGA-fueled digital natives utilizing their workplaces and social media to explode the establishments they now management — the 35-year-old lawmaker spent six years within the navy, serving within the Air Drive and Oregon Air Nationwide Guard.
She additionally labored as a cocktail waitress at a gents’s membership and as a swimsuit mannequin for a number of publications, together with Liberty Belles, which included ladies in camouflage bikinis holding firearms, and made a reputation for herself as an Instagram influencer as she pivoted into far-right politics.
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Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna will lead a Home Oversight Committee activity pressure investigating ‘federal secrets’ surrounding the JFK assassination, COVID-19, and Jeffrey Epstein (REUTERS)
After graduating from the College of West Florida with a level in biology, Luna served because the director of Hispanic engagement for Turning Level USA, touchdown a spot on Fox Information in 2018 through which she in contrast Hillary Clinton to herpes, prompting the community to apologize to viewers.
She spent most of her life as much as that time as Anna Paulina Mayerhofer, utilizing her father’s final title. Her grandfather immigrated from Germany after serving within the Wehrmacht military in Nazi Germany. She formally modified her final title to Luna, recognizing her Mexican-American mom’s ancestry.
Shortly after changing into the twelfth member of Congress to present delivery whereas in workplace, she launched the kids’s guide The Legend of Naranja, which she co-wrote together with her husband, Andrew Gamberzky. Within the guide, a Joe Biden-esque Senor Banana is depicted plotting a “scheme” to steal Fruitlandia’s presidential election from the title character in a plot echoing conspiracy theories from the 2020 presidential election.
Luna equally, falsely, believes Trump received the 2020 election.
Inside her comparatively brief time in workplace, she joined Republicans who initially refused to assist former Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, sponsored resolutions to question former Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Secretary of Homeland Safety Alejandro Mayorkas, and Washington, D.C., U.S. Legal professional Matthew Graves.
Following Trump’s government order to launch authorities recordsdata linked to JFK’s assassination, Luna blamed “corrupt bureaucrats” who’ve “hidden this information from the American people for far too long.”
“Americans deserve to know the truth, whether it makes the government look good or not,” she mentioned on the time, promising to make use of her position as a member of the Home Oversight Committee to ship the “truth” relating to JFK’s killing.
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The Republican congresswoman had beforehand tried to question members of the Biden administration and not too long ago filed a invoice to place Trump’s face on Mount Rushmore (Getty Pictures)
On Tuesday, Oversight Committee chair James Comer introduced the formation of the “Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets” to adjust to Trump’s order.
At a press convention, Luna mentioned she hopes to interview “attending physicians at the initial assassination and then also people who have been on the various commissions looking into — like the Warren Commission — looking into the initial assassination.” All members of the Warren Fee are deceased.
She additionally mentioned she needs to revisit investigations that she claims have been “rinsed and repeated by the media to push a certain narrative that we don’t agree with.”
“I believe there were two shooters,” she instructed reporters.
Then-President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Warren Fee decided Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and that there was no proof of a conspiracy, however the 1963 assassination has fueled conspiracy theories for many years.
On Tuesday, the FBI additionally mentioned it found greater than 2,000 new information associated to the Kennedy assassination because the company complies for Trump’s order. FBI officers are working to switch these information to the Nationwide Archives and Information Administration to be included within the declassification course of, in accordance with the company.
A overwhelming majority of that assortment, which incorporates greater than 5 million pages, has been made public for years. It’s unclear what sort of new info the FBI found.
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The Warren Fee decided that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone within the killing of President John F Kennedy, although Congresswoman Luna says she believes there have been ‘two shooters’ (AP)
A whole bunch of pages of unsealed court docket paperwork have additionally already recognized greater than 150 individuals related to Epstein, together with victims, associates and others, in addition to many individuals who seem to haven’t any direct hyperlink to the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in 2019 following federal charges for {sex} trafficking minors. Being named within the court docket paperwork didn’t point out any wrongdoing.
Among the many names in these paperwork: President Trump, in addition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to steer the large Division of Well being and Human Companies.
Trump and the financier met within the Nineteen Eighties although ultimately fell out over an actual property dispute within the Nineties, years earlier than Epstein’s first arrest for soliciting prostitution in 2006, and Trump has denied any data of Epstein’s abuse.
“I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you,” he mentioned within the Oval Workplace the day after New York authorities took Epstein into custody in July 2019.
Requested about Ghislaine Maxwell’s alleged position within the {sex} trafficking conspiracy throughout a White Home press briefing in 2020, Trump mentioned he knew her from their time in Palm Seashore, Florida, and that they’ve met “quite a few occasions.”
A reporter additionally requested the president whether or not he believed Maxwell was going to “turn in powerful men.”
“I don’t know, I haven’t really been following it too much,” he mentioned. “I just wish her well, frankly. I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is. I don’t know the situation with Prince Andrew, I just don’t know. Not aware of it.”
In September, Trump instructed podcaster Lex Friedman that he by no means visited Epstein’s non-public Little St. James within the U.S. Virgin Islands.
When Friedman requested whether or not Trump had “some hesitation” about releasing the so-called Epstein recordsdata, Trump replied: “I don’t think – I mean, I’m not involved… I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did.”
