TMZ Obtains Video of Incident Where GOP Florida Congresswoman Says Code Pink Leader ‘Smacked’ Her

Screenshot via TMZ.

Liberal anti-war organization Code Pink provided a video clip to TMZ showing an incident in which Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) claims one of their members “smacked” her on the arm.

During an interview Wednesday with TMZ’s Jacob Wasserman and in several tweets she posted, Luna said she was followed out of the Rayburn House Office Building by the Code Pink “head person here in DC” and that the woman “smacked” her.

“I will be filing charges,” Luna added.

She also called for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to “ban” the group from the Capitol.

In the interview with Wasserman, the TMZ reporter asked her if she could “re-enact how you were hit.”

“I was literally walking, trying to walk away from this person, and they smacked me,” said Luna.

“In what part of the body?” Wasserman asked.

“They smacked my arm,” said Luna.

“Smacked your arm,” said Wasserman. “Are you injured right now?”

“I mean, look, either way, if you don’t touch anyone — especially if you don’t like what they’re saying — you cannot physically harm someone,” Luna replied. “You can’t hit them. You can’t block people from being able to vote. And so what I will say is I have filed charges. There’s footage of this. They have multiple angles of this, and multiple witnesses. We have people that filed statements as well, and I think she’s going to be getting in a lot of trouble. You cannot do that to people.”

Later Wednesday, TMZ posted a video clip that it said it had “obtained” from Code Pink. Social media posts by Code Pink identify the woman wearing the pink jacket in the video as co-founder Medea Benjamin.

In the video, Luna is walking as Benjamin attempts to ask her questions about Cuba. A male cameraman’s voice can also be heard.

At roughly the 26-second mark, Benjamin reaches out her right hand and makes contact with the left elbow of Luna’s jacket.

“Don’t, don’t — you just touched me,” said Luna in the video, stopping to point at her elbow as one of her staffers puts up his arm in between the two.

“Oh — it was like that,” said Benjamin to Luna’s staffer, reenacting the gesture. “I’m sorry.”

“Hold on, wait, no,” said Luna. “It doesn’t matter. You just touched me. You’re going to walk away right now or else I’m going to call Capitol Police. Don’t touch me.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll walk away,” Benjamin replied, calling out “Bye-bye!” as Luna walked away from her.

The clip provided by Code Pink includes several slow-motion replays of Benjamin moving her hand toward Luna’s elbow, then shows the same scene from another angle, filmed from behind the two women as they walked, and then slow-motion replays from that angle as well.

When TMZ reached out to the U.S. Capitol Police for comment, a spokesperson replied, “For safety reasons, we cannot discuss any potential investigations.”

Code Pink posted several tweets accusing Luna of having “lied to have CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin detained by Capitol Police” in order to “try to silence our work against U.S. wars in the Middle East and sanctions on Cuba” and to “target the activists working to stop…these wildly unpopular policies.”

One post included a video of Benjamin saying that she was “being detained by a bunch of officers here outside of Congress.” She described the incident as her having “tapped” Luna’s arm “as to say ‘oh, come on’ and now she is saying I ‘assaulted’ her and she is having me detained.”

“This is retribution,” Benjamin said. “This is harassment. This is intimidation for our work…and I say BS.”

“Thankfully, Medea was released without charges,” the caption noted. “No amount of intimidation will change that the majority of people in the U.S. want to stop U.S. wars and aggression. We won’t be silenced.”

Later in the video, Benjamin is seen cheering, “Yay! Not being arrested for touching a congressperson!”

Code Pink posted a follow-up tweet, bluntly declaring, “Nobody hit her.”

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