The office of Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) deleted two of the congresswoman’s social media posts after Raw Story reported that the airplane silhouettes used in her happy birthday message to the U.S. Air Force were actually Russian fighter jets.
“Happy Birthday United States Air Force! As an Air Force Veteran myself, I’m especially thankful for everything I learned while serving in this incredible branch of our Armed Forces,” Luna, an influencer on Instagram before being elected to Congress last year, wrote on her posts.
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Rob Young, historian for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said the jets were a model developed in the old Soviet Union that evolved over the years and are still in use.
An image of a Sept. 18, 2023, Instagram post — now deleted — from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL). Instagram
“As I examine them, the silhouettes look most like MiG-29s,” Young said.
Multiple messages from Raw Story to Luna’s office before publication were not returned.
Late Tuesday night, Edie Heipel, Luna’s communications director, sent a response via email.
“This post was published without approval from me as the comms director, via a junior staffer,” Heipel wrote. “Rep. Luna is a US Air Force veteran who worked in airfield management and her husband is a Bronze Star/Purple Heart Combat Controller. To suggest she doesn’t know the difference between American and Russian fighter jets is asinine.”
The posts had been online since Sept. 18.
