Here's a simple rule most of us learned as kids: you don't get to use secret information to help your friends win money. When you're a member of Congress, that rule is even more important. The people trust you with things the public doesn't get to see. Using those secrets to cash in is called insider trading, and it's supposed to be off-limits.

Now the Wall Street Journal reports, citing a person who was at the table, that Anna Paulina Luna did exactly that — and then bragged about it over lunch.

What the report says

According to the Wall Street Journal — as reported by The Daily Beast — Luna sat down for lunch at the Stovall House, a members-only club in Tampa, in the summer of 2024. She told the people at her table that she knew ahead of time that Donald Trump would pick JD Vance as his running mate.

That wasn't the bad part. The bad part is what she said she did with that information.

The Journal reports Luna said she had tipped off Rogan O'Handley — a popular MAGA influencer who goes by "DC Draino" — about Trump's pending decision, so that he could place a winning bet on Polymarket. Polymarket is an online betting site where people wager real money on things like who a candidate will pick for vice president.

And here's the detail that tells you she knew exactly what she was doing: the Journal reports Luna even teased O'Handley for not betting more money.

Think about that. She wasn't embarrassed. She was joking that her friend should have cashed in harder on the tip she gave him.

Her denial

Luna denies it. Her first answer was a joke: "I am honored the WSJ thinks I am telepathic," she told the Journal, "but unfortunately I am not." She added that she is committed to fighting insider trading. A spokesman later went further, telling The Daily Beast that "Rep. Luna had no access to advance information about who Trump would pick as VP," that she "does not use betting markets," and that she has filed a complaint over the reporting with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

O'Handley, for his part, said: "Any suggestion that I traded on confidential information or discussed doing so is inaccurate."

Notice what the joke does. Luna's line about being "telepathic" answers an accusation nobody made. Nobody claimed she read minds. The claim, from a person at that lunch, is that she was told, or figured out, who the pick would be — and passed it to a buddy so he could win a bet. Her office says she had no such information. The Journal's source says she said she did.

The hypocrisy is the whole story

This is the same Anna Paulina Luna who has spent years dressing herself up as Washington's corruption-fighter.

Luna introduced legislation to make DOGE's government "reforms" permanent — the whole DOGE pitch was about rooting out waste, fraud, and self-dealing. House Oversight Chairman James Comer even put her in charge of a House task force on declassifying federal secrets. She casts herself as the person you can trust with the government's most sensitive information.

Then, per this report, she allegedly used inside knowledge to help a friend win a bet — and laughed about it at lunch.

You can't be the person who guards the nation's secrets and the person who hands them out for a gambling payout. One of those is a lie. And with Luna, a shaky relationship with the truth is nothing new. Her own family has disputed her account of her background, and she's been compared to George Santos over accusations that she made up parts of her story.

Part of a bigger betting problem

Luna isn't the only MAGA world figure who's been caught up in questions about profiting off inside information.

The reporting notes that the White House Counsel's office flagged potential insider trading tied to these betting markets, after anonymous accounts bet on the Iran war ceasefire; by the time the White House barred staffers from betting on inside information, some traders had reportedly made as much as $600,000 on it. Separately, a White House teleprompter operator was placed on unpaid leave after winning more than $100,000 betting on Trump's own speeches — using words he could see before the public could.

This is a pattern: people close to power turning secret information into cash while regular Americans — who don't get the tip — foot the bill and play by the rules. Luna, by this account, was in on it and thought it was funny.

Who she actually works for

None of this should surprise anyone who's looked at Luna's record. Her page shows a representative who works for billionaires and big business, not for us — with top funders including SpaceX, the Winklevoss crypto empire, casino money, and private equity. She refuses to hold in-person town halls — constituents who asked for one say they were told no — so the constituents of Florida's 13th District can't even look her in the eye and ask about any of it.

A member of Congress who allegedly leaks inside information to help a friend win a bet — and jokes he should have bet more — is not looking out for the people of Pinellas County. She's looking out for her circle. We deserve a representative who treats the public trust like it means something.

Source

This post is based on The Daily Beast's report on the Wall Street Journal's reporting about Luna, O'Handley, and the Polymarket bet.