Texas Tribune / Michael Gonzalez
U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores, R-Los Indios, speaks at a rally in Brownsville on Nov. 1, 2022.
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In a weird micro-scandal that some have dubbed “GrubGate,” a former GOP congresswoman who’s working for her previous seat in South Texas is being accused of routinely stealing photographs of Mexican meals from different social media accounts and passing them off as her personal cooking.
Earlier this week, Mayra Flores, the primary Mexican-born girl to serve in Congress, posted a photograph on social media that she described as “gorditas de masa” with the caption, “the Ranch life with household is the very best.”
Quickly after, a consumer on X, previously referred to as Twitter, identified that that the picture was beforehand posted on a Fb web page, “Go to Guyana,” in March 2022. Others stated that the meals within the picture was not gorditas de masa. That prompted the conservative web site Present Revolt to dig additional into Flores’ social media accounts, the place they discovered quite a few different posts wherein Flores used others’ photographs of campfire cooking or home made tortillas for example her personal idyllic life on a ranch.
“As a proud Latina who is aware of how you can cook dinner, home made Mexican meals tastes higher from a gasoline range,” she wrote alongside one picture of eggs and tortillas on what seems to be a wood-burning range. The picture was initially posted on Fb in 2021 by a Spanish-language journal.
The Tribune individually reviewed Flores’ Instagram and located a minimum of two such cases within the final yr, together with one submit from July wherein she shared a photograph of meat and tortillas on a grill with the caption, “Joe Biden just isn’t invited to the carne asada” in each English and Spanish. A reverse picture search discovered that the precise picture was posted a yr prior by a Fb web page for tourism in Tamaulipas — the state in Mexico the place Flores was born.
In one other submit, she praised the “easy issues in life” like a “good breakfast” alongside a photograph that was first printed two years in the past by a Mexican meals photographer.
In a textual content message on Wednesday, Flores stated it wasn’t her “intention to mislead.”
“The picture merely jogged my memory of my upbringing in Mexico and childhood,” she stated. “I deleted the tweet to clear up any confusion. I really spend my Christmas at ranch with my In-Legal guidelines. Blissful New 12 months!”
Requested to specify which of the photographs she was referring to, Flores advised that the Tribune deal with “the border disaster.”
She additionally modified her deal with on X amid the criticism and has been blocking individuals on social media all through Tuesday and Wednesday who’ve accused her of falsely passing the photographs of cooking off as her personal.
“The George Santos of the [Rio Grande Valley],” wrote the marketing campaign for U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, who Flores is at present difficult.
Flores is working to retake the South Texas seat that she initially received in a June 2022 particular election. Her win was seen by the GOP as an indication of momentum amongst closely Hispanic voters there. However redistricting made the seat extra favorable for Democrats within the November election, and Flores misplaced to Gonzalez.
This text initially appeared within the Texas Tribune.
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