GOP Rep ASSAULTED Exiting Capitol Building!

A sitting U.S. congresswoman says a far-left protest group physically struck her on Capitol Hill, and the video of what actually happened is now at the center of a very loud, very revealing political fight.

Story Snapshot

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) says CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin smacked her arm on Capitol Hill following a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing featuring Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Luna gave a statement to Capitol Police, who are investigating the incident as assault, and she says she is pressing criminal charges.
CODEPINK fired back, calling Luna’s account false and filing an ethics complaint against her with the House.
Video of the incident exists and has been circulating, but the two sides are describing what it shows in completely opposite terms.

What Happened Outside the Rubio Hearing

The confrontation followed a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing where Luna had pressed Secretary Rubio on CODEPINK’s alleged ties to foreign influence networks, including connections to Chinese Communist Party-linked financier Neville Roy Singham. The hearing was already combustible before anyone left the room. CODEPINK activists were present in force, and the encounter with Luna happened as she was leaving the Capitol building. Luna says she was trying to walk away when the physical contact occurred. ^[1]

Luna described the moment plainly: “I was literally walking, trying to walk away from this person, and they smacked me.” She identified the person as Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of CODEPINK, and said the contact landed on her arm. Luna reported the incident to Capitol Police, gave a formal statement, and announced she is pursuing criminal charges. She also called on Speaker Mike Johnson to ban CODEPINK from the Capitol entirely. ^[2]

CODEPINK’s Counter-Narrative and the Video Problem

CODEPINK’s response was swift and aggressive. The group published a statement on its website calling Luna’s accusations false and claiming Luna made them “without evidence.” CODEPINK also announced it was filing a House ethics complaint against Luna, flipping the script entirely and casting itself as the aggrieved party. Benjamin herself reenacted the alleged contact on social media, apparently to demonstrate its lightness, though that kind of demonstration tends to confirm contact occurred rather than refute it. ^[3]

TMZ obtained video of the incident directly from CODEPINK, which raises an immediate question worth sitting with: why would an organization hand over footage it believes exonerates it to a celebrity tabloid rather than directly to Capitol Police? The answer is almost certainly political optics, not legal strategy. Organizations that believe they are clean release footage to law enforcement first. Releasing it to TMZ first is a media play, not an innocence play. ^[4]

The Assault Question Is Narrower Than the Noise Suggests

Under District of Columbia law, assault does not require injury. Intentional, unwanted physical contact is sufficient. Luna did not claim she was injured, and the video does not appear to show a violent blow. But none of that necessarily resolves the legal question. What matters is whether Benjamin intentionally made physical contact with Luna without her consent. By Benjamin’s own reenactment, contact happened. The dispute is over its force and intent, which is precisely what a criminal investigation is designed to determine. ^[1]^[2]

AI Overview
No, Representative Anna Paulina Luna was not violently "smacked" or struck, though she publicly claimed she was following an encounter with a CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin.

— James McCormick (@cuchulain9) June 4, 2026

CODEPINK has a long history of disruptive Capitol Hill protest tactics, and this incident did not occur in a vacuum. Luna had just spent a hearing connecting the group to foreign influence operations. The physical encounter, whatever its exact nature, happened in that charged context. Dismissing Luna’s account as political theater while ignoring that context is itself a political choice. The comparison some critics made to Jussie Smollett is premature at best and dishonest at worst, given that video evidence of some contact already exists and no investigation has concluded. ^[3]

Why This Incident Is Bigger Than One Arm Tap

The real story here is the collision of two separate battles happening simultaneously. The first is the factual question of whether Medea Benjamin committed a criminal act against a sitting member of Congress. The second is the political question of whether foreign-linked activist groups should have unfettered access to Capitol Hill to confront lawmakers who are actively investigating them. Luna is pushing on both fronts at once. Whether or not charges ultimately stick, she has forced a conversation about who gets to physically confront elected officials in the halls of the United States Capitol, and why that has been treated as acceptable political theater for so long. ^[2]^[3]