Madison Cawthorn

He, like so many in the GOP, has clearly taken his cue from the top. Former President Donald Trump attempted a brazen coup to overturn the 2020 election and ...

Cawthorn seems to believe that he — like other powerful people in his party — is above the law. Cawthorn is also scheduled to appear in court next month on a charge of driving with a revoked license, which carries penalties like a possible loss of license, fines and even a short prison stay. The result is that four of them have announced their retirements instead of running again in November and the six others — including Liz Cheney of Wyoming — face Trump-backed primary challengers. So why wouldn’t Cawthorn, 26, believe he is likewise above the law? And the GOP base has donated massive amounts of money since he left office, resulting in Trump’s now sitting on over $110 million campaign donations he can dole out to help Republicans candidates this year — or himself if he runs in 2024. Add to that the reporting this week that Cawthorn may have violated federal insider trading laws in December with his hyping of a cryptocurrency that was part of an alleged “pump and dump” scheme.

"I feel the passion and desire, and would like to see a naked body beneath my hands," says Cawthorn in the video.

Cawthorn was also cited this week for bringing a loaded gun into the Charlotte airport. Wheeler also posted several screenshots of what he claimed were records of Cawthorn and Smith's Venmo payments to one another. I'd like to see that as well," while turning the camera on himself. In the screenshots, some of the payments sent from Cawthorn to Smith included labels like "Getting naked for me in Sweden," "The stuff we did in Amsterdam," and "The quickie at the airport." It has also been retweeted over 6,000 times. The man doing the filming then responds, saying, "Me too.

Since his election in 2020, the 26-year-old Republican has been a veritable prodigy of controversy, somehow even managing to alienate members of his scandal- ...

Cawthorn received a firm talking to from House Minority Leader (and model of honesty) Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy told reporters that Cawthorn had amended his claims during the meeting, saying that “he thinks he saw maybe a staffer in a parking garage [do cocaine] from 100 yards away.” But this remark seems to have been the straw that broke the GOP’s back. Cawthorn has implied that as a result of the accident, he was unable to follow through on his dreams of attending the US Naval Academy. However, this was just another falsehood, as the Naval Academy had rejected him before the accident. Ledford told the Washington Post that Cawthorn was unconscious after the crash, a claim buttressed by a deposition in which the future congressman said he had “no memory” of the accident. Rather than running “to safety deep in the woods,” Ledford said that he’d pulled Cawthorn from the burning car, potentially saving his life. When Cawthorn was a teenager, he and his friend Bradley Ledford were driving back to North Carolina after a spring break trip to Florida, when Ledford fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a construction barrier. Experts told the Examiner that if Cawthorn had inside knowledge of the deal and if he owned the cryptocurrency at the time, his actions could constitute a potential violation of federal law.

Footage obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com shows Rep. Madison Cawthorn, 26, in a car with his close aid and staffer Stephen Smith, 23.

A picture included in the exhibits filed in support of the call for an ethics investigation appears to show Cawthorn and Smith, poolside. One payment made by Cawthorn to Smith and dated June 17, 2018, reads, 'Getting naked for me in Sweden' 'Somebody's going to get hurt. Leaked pictures emerged in which he was seen, possibly intoxicated, wearing women's lingerie at a party. He's been doing this stuff for a while.' He said Smith and Cawthorn are cousins. In addition to their concerns about Cawthorn's alleged gifts and loans to Smith and the nature of his relationship with his staffer the Fire Madison Cawthorn complaint has also called for an investigation into both of his attempts to bring loaded firearms onto flights and an attempt to bring a '4.45inch dagger' to North Carolina public educational property on four documented occasions. A Venmo payment history between Smith and Cawthorn, attached to the ethics filing and dating from June 2018 is littered with suggestive messages in the form of notes attached to the payments. A Venmo payment history between Smith and Cawthorn, attached to the ethics filing and dating from June 2018 is littered with suggestive messages in the form of notes attached to the payments. Cawthorn stood with the aid of a walker and exoskeleton to make his vows and kiss his bride. Among the many allegations is the claim that Cawthorn provided thousands of dollars in loans and gifts to Smith - Among the many allegations is the claim that Cawthorn provided thousands of dollars in loans and gifts to Smith

Democratic leaders on the congressional panels that oversee the Transportation Security Administration are seeking answers about the agency's handling of ...

They also asked Pekoske for more details on the agency’s efforts to reduce the number of firearms being brought to airports. Passengers must also inform the airline that they are traveling with a firearm. The committee held a hearing on the issue in February, while there is legislation in Congress aimed at reducing the number of incidents. In their letter Thursday, Thompson and Watson Coleman note that nearly 6,000 firearms were detected at airport checkpoints last year, the most in TSA history. It was the second time the lawmaker had violated rules that prohibit traveling with firearms in carry-on bags, the first occurring in February 2021. He was cited for possession of a dangerous weapon on city property, then released, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. His gun was confiscated as per standard procedure, officials said.

Police released footage of him getting pulled over for driving with expired tags and being told to surrender his revoked license. The Washington Examiner ...

The Republican National Committee gave Cawthorn a prime speaking slot at its 2020 convention. He called himself the “CEO” of his business, but he was the sole employee and it had no earned income. He misrepresented himself as a full-time staffer of then-Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), when his most extensive employment was apparently at Chick-fil-A. In a photo on his campaign website, he posed with a rifle and a pistol in a holster featuring a symbol used by the Oath Keepers. He also used as a backdrop for interviews a Betsy Ross flag, which has also been appropriated by white nationalists. As the Asheville Citizen Times, Jezebel and others reported in 2020, Cawthorn named his real-estate company SPQR Holdings, an abbreviated Latin phrase that has been co-opted by white nationalists. And so he did, on the basis of audacious lies and winks at white nationalists. He committed the latest of many driving offenses (three court dates are pending). Earlier, four women accused him of sexual misconduct, in a BuzzFeed article; Cawthorn denied the allegations. (Cawthorn denied these accusations, too.) Cawthorn claimed he was nominated for the U.S. Naval Academy but his “ plans were derailed that year after he nearly died in a tragic automobile accident”; the academy rejected him before the accident. Several who participated in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, have run for Congress. If Republicans succeed in taking the House in November, the new majority could make the current Congress — with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert and the rest — look like Periclean Athens. But Cawthorn is a monster of Republicans’ own creation. Cawthorn saw the GOP’s direction — and did what he had to do to be successful.

The congressman has suggested the series of recent controversies ahead of May's primary election bid are part of a GOP-led campaign to remove him.

"Many of my colleagues would be nowhere near politics if they had grown up with a cell phone in their hands," Cawthorn tweeted. The filings suggest that Smith and Cawthorn have a "personal relationship between them, separate and apart from the professional relationship of employer and employee." The pair are said to be so close that Smith joined Cawthorn and his wife on their honeymoon in Dubai in April 2021, with a number of pictures of the pair engaging in activities beyond a professional relationship appearing on social media.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn ( R-N.C.) has been a lightning rod for controversy. The 26-year-old freshman lawmaker, who was elected to represent North Carolina's ...

They urged the TSA “to act decisively to ensure repeat offenders like Cawthorn face the full extent of TSA’s enforcement actions.” There needs to be a thorough and bipartisan inquiry into the matter by the House Ethics Committee,” Tillis tweeted. “Remember that Zelensky is a thug,” Cawthorn said in the undated recording. We invite you to join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter. He added that he has seen people who advocate against addiction doing “key bumps of cocaine.” “That’s not becoming of a congressman. You should come.’ … You realize they are asking you to come to an orgy,” Cawthorn said. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) later said Cawthorn gave him no evidence to back up his statements. “I love this country and have never engaged in, or would ever engage in, an insurrection against the United States.” And Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Wednesday called for a House Ethics Committee investigation into Cawthorn over allegations of insider trading. I do not want Americans dying because emotions pushed us into a conflict.” They are not expendable pawns to be dispatched at the whims of an idiot, tossed carelessly around the world to Godforsaken caves and bloody sandboxes.

Republican Madison Cawthorn has recently been subject to numerous controversies, and at least one member of his party is calling for an ethics investigation ...

In one, Cawthorn seemingly addresses the controversy stemming from recent leaked footage and photos with: "Many of my colleagues would be nowhere near politics if they had grown up with a cell phone in their hands." The group says Cawthorn did — by promoting former President Trump's baseless election conspiracies. "Insider trading by a member of Congress is a serious betrayal of their oath, and Congressman Cawthorn owes North Carolinians an explanation," Tillis wrote on Twitter earlier this week. But in recent weeks, the controversy has seemingly reached a crescendo, spurred at least in part by Cawthorn's March appearance on a podcast, in which he suggested other, older lawmakers in Washington, D.C., were doing drugs and engaging in orgies. The lawmaker has previously stirred up controversy for a racist campaign statement about Sen. Cory Booker, for his vote to overturn the 2020 election despite no evidence of widespread fraud and for more recent comments about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which he subsequently clarified. "There needs to be a thorough and bipartisan inquiry into the matter by the House Ethics Committee."

The Madison Cawthorn scandal exposes how the GOP depends on right-wing media to delude their base.

For those folks, Fox News is the "mainstream" source that they watch to validate the even more delusional crap they get off their internet buddies. The Republican goal here is clearly getting Cawthorn out of Congress and, more crucially, out of the right-wing media ecosystem. The Cawthorn scandal is a hilarious good time and no one should feel bad about laughing over it. Indeed, the image Cawthorn was trying to construct of himself on the "Warrior Poet Society" podcast was as a teetotaling naif who cannot believe the deviance he's exposed to in the big city. Worse, that bubble isn't just composed of, or even primarily composed of, major media outlets that ordinary news consumers have heard of, like Fox News. Conservative media consumers are embedded in an infinite-seeming number of smaller and often independent outlets that fly under the radar of most people who aren't in the bubble. None of that information will penetrate the information bubble Republican voters have constructed for themselves, of fundamentalist YouTubers and Facebook personalities like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens. Inside that bubble, the image of Republican politicians is very different: That they're all pious, clean-living Christians who spend their Saturday nights in prayerful reflection instead of sucking down overpriced cocktails at the bar in Trump's D.C. hotel. But for people who live inside the conservative media bubble, this sort of stuff could easily be read as Satanic decadence. It is not exactly shocking news to consumers of mainstream media to hear Republicans on Capitol Hill like to tie one on. Considering that breathless urban legend-style stories are the lingua franca of right-wing media, one would think that Republicans would just blow this one off as Cawthorn doing what he usually does, which is talking smack to get attention. Nah, it's because he went on some podcast run by something called the "Warrior Poet Society" and declared that Republican congressmen in their 60s and 70s invite him to orgies and do cocaine in front of him. They're way more worried about cocaine-and-orgies talk on a Christian podcast — one few in the legacy media had even heard of — than what's printed in the New York Times. In a world where so much news is just plain depressing, it's an unexpected delight to watch the Republican establishment pull out their bag of dirty tricks and rat-f**k one of their own.

Now, Mr Cawthorn is claiming that "RINOs" – Republicans in Name Only – are engaged in a coordinated smear campaign to hurt his re-election chances.

On 22 April, Politico published a story about photos sent to the publication showing Mr Cawthron partying while wearing women's lingerie. … Some of the people leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country, and then you watch them do a key bump of cocaine right in front of you. "Then all of a sudden you get invited – ‘We’re going to have a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come.’ … What did you just ask me to come to?

"Please disclose which Republican House Members offered you cocaine and invited you to an orgy," liberal political action committee MeidasTouch tweeted.

Stone wrote in a post on his Telegram channel on March. (RINO is an acronym for "Republican in name only." Right-wing strategist Roger Stone, an ally of former President Donald Trump—who publicly endorsed Cawthorn's reelection bid—said that the congressman told him he never denied the remarks in his conversation with McCarthy. "The PAC that filed the complaint did no research." Although McCarthy told reporters that Cawthorn admitted the orgy and cocaine claims were untrue, Cawthorn did not do so publicly. It also included screenshots of alleged 2018 Venmo payments from Cawthorn to Smith, which included messages reading: "The quickie at the airport" and "Getting naked for me in Sweden," among other suggestive comments. The man filming the video, who is Stephen Smith according to a new ethics complaint and is listed by Congressweb as Cawthorn's scheduler, responds, "me too," before reaching over and rubbing his hand on the GOP lawmaker's crotch area.

Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, once a bright young star in the conservative firmament, finds himself besieged by accusations and ...

The far-right wing of the party once viewed Mr. Cawthorn, a telegenic congressman who uses a wheelchair after a car crash at the age of 18, as a young leader with potential. Many of them have noted that even Donald Trump Jr., a popular figure on the right, has stayed quiet and made no attempt to come to his defense. But Mr. Wheeler said his group will keep up the pressure. The ethics complaint said Mr. Cawthorn has provided loans to Mr. Smith in violation of House rules. A legal effort led by North Carolina Democrats to label him as an “insurrectionist” and constitutionally disqualify him from the ballot failed last month. Another former aide, Lisa Wiggins, went public in an audio recording released by Mr. Wheeler with her consent, saying, “We all want the ultimate goal of him never serving again.” But the revelations about his conduct are making a splash. In rapid succession, Mr. Cawthorn, who entered Congress as a rising star of the party’s far right, has been accused of falsely suggesting that his Republican colleagues routinely throw cocaine-fueled orgies, insider trading and an inappropriate relationship with a male aide. Now its members keep him at arm’s length and view him as a troubled individual who isn’t always aligned with the base on the issues. And last month he was charged with driving with a revoked license for the second time since 2017. A political group supporting Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, has been pouring money into an ad campaign accusing Mr. Cawthorn of being a fame-seeking liar. The group is supporting the campaign of a more mainstream Republican, State Senator Chuck Edwards, who is running against Mr. Cawthorn. And the far-right, anti-establishment wing of the party now views the first-term congressman with similar skepticism, as someone who is falsely selling himself as a gatekeeper in his state to former President Donald J. Trump.

A political action group is asking for an ethics investigation of North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn, citing his pattern of bringing weapons ...

Cawthorn's office did not have a statement in response to the allegations, but instead pointed CBS News to the congressman's recent tweets. OCE did not respond to a request for comment, but Muckrakers PAC published a screenshot of an email from the office confirming that it had received the request for an investigation. "We have a responsibility to have an ethical standard here," she told reporters. The provide documents that appear to show Smith lives in a house owned by Cawthorn without any repayment. "They have to take care of their own house. They also suggest the two may have an inappropriate personal relationship – which is prohibited between a lawmaker and a member of their staff — citing, among other things, the fact that Smith accompanied Cawthorn on his honeymoon to Dubai in April 2021 and a video that appears to show Smith placing his hand on Cawthorn's crotch.