Florida Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna announced Wednesday she is pursuing criminal charges against a member of the far-left activist organization Code Pink following a physical confrontation on Capitol Hill.
The episode began inside a congressional hearing room, where Luna had been questioning Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Code Pink and its alleged connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
Luna serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and her line of questioning centered on whether foreign governments have been working to influence domestic advocacy organizations operating in the United States.
What happened next, according to Luna, took place in the hallway after she exited the hearing. A group of Code Pink members followed her out of the building, berated her, and then the group’s top Washington organizer physically struck her.
“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,” Luna wrote on X. “I will be filing charges.”
TMZ obtained and published video of the encounter. The footage shows Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin moving her hand toward Luna’s elbow, captured from multiple camera angles, including slow-motion replays.
Luna is heard in the video telling Benjamin, “Hold on, wait, no. 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.”
Benjamin responded, “Oh, all right. I’ll walk away,” and called out “Bye-bye!” as Luna walked away from her.
Luna pushed back against any attempt to frame the event as unverified. “Btw these are not ‘allegations’. It happened. My staff was there when it happened and wrote statements for LEO,” she posted.
Luna stated that law enforcement investigators have access to both video footage and witness statements supporting her account.
In a separate interview with TMZ, Luna broadened her comments beyond the immediate incident. “Look, we live in a day and age when people feel like they can hurt people because they disagree with them politically. We’ve seen this happen to many conservatives, but I’m sure it also happens on the left as well. That’s unacceptable,” she said.
“You don’t touch anyone, especially if you don’t like what they’re saying. You cannot physically harm someone. You can’t hit them,” Luna stated.
She further stated, “I’m just glad that there was footage of it, and I think that we have more than enough evidence to hold this person accountable and responsible. Let this person be a symbol to everyone else that’s going to come up here and try to hurt people because they disagree with them.”
Luna also took direct aim at the group’s access to the Capitol complex.
She called on Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to bar Code Pink from congressional spaces entirely, 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.”
U.S. Capitol Police, when contacted for comment, responded, “For safety reasons, we cannot discuss any potential investigations.”
Code Pink has disputed Luna’s characterization of events.
The organization denied receiving money from China or any foreign government, and released a statement accusing Luna and other lawmakers of deploying unsubstantiated claims to silence political opposition.
The group also filed an ethics complaint against Luna, labeling her statements “false and defamatory.”
The scrutiny of Code Pink extends beyond this week’s hearing.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent requests to both the Justice Department and the FBI in April 2025, asking them to investigate whether Code Pink and the People’s Forum should be required to register as foreign agents under federal law, citing alleged connections between both groups and the Chinese government.
During the same hearing that preceded the incident, Rubio addressed the broader question of foreign-backed domestic activism.
“There’s no doubt that when you have people showing up with pre-printed signs 24 hours after Nicholas Maduro was arrested and extradited to the United States, that’s not an organic movement. Someone’s paying for that,” Rubio said.
