Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Congress’s most vocal crusader against insider trading, now threatens to sue a newspaper and prosecute a federal source over allegations she calls a fabricated smear.
The Wall Street Journal reported July 18 that Luna tipped off MAGA influencer Rogan O’Handley on President Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick so O’Handley could place a winning bet on Polymarket, a political betting platform.
A July 22 letter from Associate Deputy Attorney General Diego Pestana, obtained by Axios, confirmed the Justice Department never investigated Luna over the allegations.
“This disgusting attempt to politically smear me fell flat on its face because it was based on lies,” Luna wrote on X.
“I was never under investigation and the WSJ reported false information based on one ‘anonymous source’ and then cherry-picked my quote to spin their own fake narrative,” Luna continued on X. “That’s not journalism, that’s a political hit job.”
Luna wrote on X that the source behind the allegations has been referred for criminal investigation.
“Any and all outlets who reported this fake story will be forced to retract and take down. We have already sent one cease and desist, more incoming if these outlets don’t correct their false reporting,” she wrote.
Luna sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Tampa Bay Times, which had covered the WSJ report, demanding it remove two articles, issue a retraction, and preserve all documents ahead of possible litigation, according to Axios.
Pestana wrote that the Justice Department “at no point had an open investigation into allegations that Rep. Luna engaged in criminal conduct, including allegations about insider trading in prediction markets,” according to Axios.
Pestana added the department “never received a referral based on those same allegations from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,” the outlet reported.
The Journal based its report on “a person familiar with the conversation” who said Luna, at a summer 2024 lunch at the Stovall House — a members-only social club in Tampa — told associates she knew Trump would pick Vice President J.D. Vance.
According to that source, Luna said she tipped off O’Handley and “teased” him for “not placing a bigger wager,” the Journal reported.
O’Handley denied “receiving, trading on or discussing nonpublic information about Trump’s vice presidential pick,” calling the story “pure BS” on X.
Luna spearheaded a discharge petition in December to force a House floor vote banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks.
The Senate voted unanimously in April to ban its members from trading on prediction markets. The House has not passed a similar measure.