JoAnna Mendoza’s Fishy & Weird Syrian Marriage

Hello –

 

Daily Mail is out with a bizarre story on how JoAnna Mendoza (AZ-06) had a previously secret marriage in Syria…and then just left the guy there…

 

While Mendoza seemingly confirmed she was married, she has A LOT more explaining to do.

 

The whole situation is fishy and weird. Why did she marry a guy in Syria? Why did she leave him in Syria weeks later? Why did she keep it a secret? Why did she not divorce him until TWO YEARS LATER?

 

Read more below.

 

Bisexual Democratic star recruit’s secret 16-day marriage exposed: ‘Fishy and weird’

By Victoria Churchill

Daily Mail

July 9, 2026

 

JoAnna Mendoza, 49, a first-time federal candidate, has garnered national media attention amid her challenge to incumbent Republican congressman Juan Ciscomani in Arizona’s most competitive House seat, the Sixth Congressional District.

 

Mendoza is currently unmarried, and, based on her public statements and campaign materials, does not appear to have ever been married. She is a ‘single mom by choice’ to her ten-year-old son, Aiden, who appears in a number of her campaign posts and videos.

 

But the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal that Mendoza was married once before – to a Syrian national who never followed her back to the United States.

 

…

 

 

Records obtained by the Daily Mail show Mendoza wed Tariq Alrawwass, then unemployed, in Syria on April 20, 1998, three years after she left the Navy and a year before she joined the Marine Corps.

 

The marriage lasted 16 days.

 

‘I returned to the U.S. in May of 1998, approximately one week after our marriage. Respondent did not return with me,’ Mendoza wrote in a March 2001 court filing.

 

She did not file for divorce until October 17, 2000, more than two years after the split, and struggled to locate Alrawwass, reaching him through a relative living in the US and through her own father, who reportedly had her ex-husband’s number.

 

…

 

The Daily Mail was unable to reach Alrawwass and two of his other family members for comment. Ciscomani’s campaign also did not respond to the Daily Mail’s inquiry.

 

But Lydia Hall, a spokeswoman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Super PAC endorsed by House GOP leadership, told the Daily Mail, ‘This situation is fishy and weird. JoAnna Mendoza owes Arizonans a full explanation.’

 

Alrawwass does not appear to have ever lived in the United States.

 

A judge granted Mendoza a default divorce judgment in June 2001.

 

Mendoza’s own Naval service record, also obtained by the Daily Mail, offers no indication of how she and Alrawwass met.

 

Read the full article here.

 

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