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Category: Madison Cawthorn

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene May be Affected by Insurrection Court Ruling

    A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court’s ruling regarding a challenge to Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s (R-North Carolina) candidacy, which could influence challenges against other candidates who have been accused of aiding an insurrection against the U.S. due to their attempts to keep former President Donald Trump in power.

    A federal district judge previously ruled that Cawthorn’s eligibility to run for office couldn’t be challenged due to the Amnesty Act of 1872, which granted amnesty to former members of the Confederacy who had been barred from holding office due to conditions listed in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. But that rationale was rejected on Tuesday in a ruling from a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

    “We hold only that the 1872 Amnesty Act does not categorically exempt all future rebels and insurrectionists from the political disabilities that otherwise would be created by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the opinion from the court, written by Judge Toby Heytens, said.

    Although the court made it explicitly clear that it was not directly ruling on Cawthorn’s eligibility, leaving that to lower courts to decide upon, its decision does mean that the Amnesty Act cannot be used as a means of defense against such challenges. The appeals panel also ruled that the challenge to Cawthorn wasn’t moot, even though he lost in a primary election to another Republican candidate earlier this week.

    The ruling is only legally binding in jurisdictions overseen by the Fourth Circuit Court, which include the states of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. But the ruling could still influence decisions in other courts where Republicans are facing 14th Amendment challenges.

    Five voters in Georgia, for example, are challenging the candidacy of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), a Trump loyalist who pushed for his administration to consider using martial law in order to keep the former president in power following his loss to now-President Joe Biden.

    Earlier this year, Georgia Administrative Law Judge Charles Beaudrot ruled against the challenge from the voters on Greene’s candidacy, improperly shifting the responsibility of proving whether Greene was eligible to run to the voters, despite Georgia precedent saying that the onus should lie on the candidate. Beaudrot also claimed that the challengers hadn’t presented enough evidence, and that therefore, he wasn’t obligated to make any decision regarding the 1872 law.

    Those voters filed an appeal arguing that Beaudrot’s ruling rested on faulty logic, and that Greene’s advocacy for the use of martial law and her vote against the certification of the 2020 presidential election should render her ineligible.

    “Greene’s defense rested almost entirely on her claimed lack of memory,” the appeal states, adding that Greene “answered ‘I don’t recall’ or some version thereof more than 80 times during the hearing.”

    It’s possible that the Amnesty Act question could come about during the appeal in Greene’s case within the 11th Circuit Court system, which Georgia is a part of. The ruling in the Cawthorn case could be cited as a legal precedent in Greene’s case.

    The Cawthorn decision could also impact other Trump-loyalist Republicans. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona are currently facing similar challenges based on 14th Amendment eligibility questions.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • House Ethics Committee Opens Investigation Into Madison Cawthorn

    The House Ethics Committee has announced it is opening an investigation into Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-Georgia), a freshman lawmaker who has been embroiled in many scandals since he was first sworn into office early last year.

    Cawthorn, the committee said in its report, may have violated ethics rules on financial dealings — specifically by “improperly promot[ing] a cryptocurrency in which he may have had an undisclosed financial interest” — as well as engaging in “an improper relationship with an individual employed on his congressional staff.”

    In a rare showing of bipartisan unanimity, every Democrat and every Republican on the committee voted to initiate the investigation into Cawthorn.

    The committee had also met earlier this month to discuss several misdemeanor charges that Cawthorn has faced in the past regarding his reckless driving habits, including speeding and driving without a license. Committee members voted against pursuing those matters as part of its inquiry.

    Reacting to the announcement of the investigation, Cawthorn appeared cavalier on social media about it. “Wow, I must still be a problem for the swamp! They’re still coming after me!” he said on Twitter.

    In spite of his dismissive attitude toward the investigation, the action from the committee is the latest in a string of mishaps and misfortunes for the freshman Republican, whose political fortunes appear to be trending downward.

    Cawthorn lost his primary election last week to Republican challenger Chuck Edwards, a three-term state Senator.

    He has been caught twice in as many years bringing a loaded gun through airport security. Earlier this year, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, Cawthorn was caught on camera describing Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “thug,” commentary that earned him the ire of some of his fellow party members. He also upset many in the GOP establishment for implying that D.C. insiders had invited him to sex parties after he was sworn into office.

    Cawthorn was also involved in events that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021. During a “Stop the Steal” speech in front of the White House on that morning, the North Carolina lawmaker implored loyalists of former President Donald Trump (many of whom eventually took part in the violent breach of the building) to “lightly threaten” lawmakers that were refusing to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Pennsylvania’s GOP Nominee for Governor Is Arguably the Scariest Man in Politics

    Tuesday’s big GOP primary day has come and gone, and one terrifying threat to the republic has been replaced by another. Madison Cawthorn, the GQ model and pocket Nazi for North Carolina’s 11th district, was narrowly defeated in the primary by Chuck Edwards, a three-term GOP state senator, largely thanks to the efforts of conservative Sen. Thom Tillis, who had endured more than enough of Cawthorn’s disturbing antics. To this, we owe Tillis a nod of thanks; Cawthorn was going places, and none of them were good.

    Exit Cawthorn, enter Doug Mastriano — the far right election denier who just won the Republican nomination in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race — and God help us all.

    If you had shaken me awake on Tuesday morning and asked me who the most terrifying U.S. politician is, I may have surprised you by not replying, “Donald Trump.” The once and future orange pain in my ass is high on the list, to be sure, but there has always been something about Cawthorn’s slick delivery that has chilled me to the bone in a way Trump’s buffoonery never did. One always has the sense Trump knows he’s deploying a shtick, but with Cawthorn you realize that he means every word he says, and he hasn’t told you half of what he really thinks.

    For a time there, Cawthorn gave every sense of being the GOP’s Chosen One. Elected in 2020 at age 25, he immediately became one of Trump’s favorites (“a terrific young man … He’s going to be one of the greats”). He got a prime speaker’s slot at the 2020 Republican convention and spoke at the January 6 rally that preceded the sacking of the Capitol. Cawthorn’s gun-wielding racism lined up perfectly with a GOP base that has grown more fractious and violent by the day, and his embrace of Trump’s election lies made him bulletproof for a time in a caucus already burdened by the nonsense of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar.

    There will always be a place in U.S. politics for handsome young men with no shame. Cawthorn and his highly toxic masculinity were rapidly gaining momentum. “It’s hard not to arrive at the conclusion that this is the future of the Republican Party,” New York Magazine writer Talia Lavin said following the 2020 election, “and the main of what it has to offer.”

    Well, the man may be gone now to Fox or Newsmax or shooting reverse mortgage commercials with Tom Selleck in between ads for Aspercreme, but everything about him the bulk of Republican voters once liked still remain the top-tier values of that bloc… and into the void steps Doug Mastriano, who won the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania governor last night by almost 25 points.

    Cawthorn cracked under the pressure of being the future of the party, but Mastriano is perfectly happy to be the present… and his present is raw Christian nationalism where elections don’t matter if his party has the muscle to overthrow the outcome. As much as any other Trump sycophant, Mastriano has labored to be seen as if he has moved mountains trying to change the results of the 2020 presidential election… yet all he has really done is showboat for the press. His own Pennsylvania Republican Party ejected him from an audit of the 2020 vote because, according to state Senate President Jake Corman, Mastriano was “only ever interested in politics and showmanship and not actually getting things done.”

    Some other lowlights of the Mastriano phenomenon, courtesy of Popular Information:

    In April 2022, Mastriano spoke at a far-right Christian conference, “Patriots Arise for God and Country,” which was organized by “Francine and Allen Fodsick, self-described prophets who have long promoted QAnon.” At the outset of the event, organizers played a video “claiming the world is experiencing a ‘great awakening’ that will expose ‘ritual child sacrifice’ and a ‘global satanic blood cult.’”

    Mastriano’s position on abortion reflects his Christian nationalist worldview. Christian nationalism, the New Yorker reports, is rooted in “the idea that God intended America to be a Christian nation.” During his time as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan he “developed a dim view of Islam.” He has frequently “spread Islamophobic memes online,” including “a conspiracy theory that Ilhan Omar, the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, directed fellow-Muslims to throw a five-year-old over a balcony.”

    After retiring from the military and successfully running for office in 2019, Mastriano “began attending events held by a movement called the New Apostolic Reformation.” Members of the New Apostolic Reformation believe “that God speaks to them directly, and that they have been tasked with battling real-world demons who control global leaders.”

    Cawthorn and Mastriano arrived on the political scene at roughly the same time. What separates them appears to be Cawthorn’s aversion to work; Mastriano, by comparison, has hardly rested over the last two years, and is now an election away from assuming control over one of the most politically influential states in the union. Tuesday’s results represent further proof that the Republican Party has transformed into a metaphoric King Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster: Cut off one head, and another pops snarling into its place.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Madison Cawthorn Loses GOP Primary Election, Is Out of Running for 2022 Midterms

    United States Congressman Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) has lost his bid to remain in office for another term in Tuesday’s primary election. He lost to Chuck Edwards, a three-term GOP state senator.

    Edwards narrowly defeated Cawthorn, attaining 33.4 percent of the total vote in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District GOP primary. Cawthorn came in second place, with 31.9 percent of the vote or about 1,300 ballots fewer than Edwards.

    Cawthorn conceded to Edwards on Tuesday evening, after it was clear there were not enough votes remaining for him to win. Edwards will face off against the Democratic primary winner, Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, a Christian minister and current Buncombe County commissioner, in the general election this November.

    Edwards’s win over Cawthorn, a devotee of former President Donald Trump who spoke at the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump loyalists, is being viewed as a victory for establishment Republicans who have expressed frustration with Cawthorn’s antics and controversial actions. Cawthorn’s loss was also commemorated on social media by progressives. Even though another conservative Republican may take his place in Washington, given Cawthorn’s extremist leanings, some progressives felt his elimination in the primaries was enough to warrant celebration.

    Indeed, in previewing some of the primary elections that took place last night, Truthout’s own senior editor and lead columnist William Rivers Pitt briefly discussed what the North Carolina congressman’s loss might symbolize.

    “Cawthorn’s defeat tonight would mean one less incoherent fascist in the House, another fine haircut down in the ditch of history,” Pitt wrote on Tuesday.

    Several scandals involving Cawthorn have been well-documented. He was cited this spring for bringing a loaded gun through airport security, for example — the second time in as many years that he’s done so. Cawthorn described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “thug” and derided his government for being both “evil” and “woke,” comments that upset members of his own party in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of that country. Cawthorn also received condemnation from his fellow Republicans after he implied that Washington insiders had invited him to sex parties. In his 2020 congressional campaign, Cawthorn had also lied about being accepted into the Naval Academy.

    In spite of these controversies and more, Trump doubled down on his endorsement of Cawthorn earlier this week, saying that the lawmaker deserved “a second chance.” The endorsement was likely due to Cawthorn’s continued loyalty to the former president, even after Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election.

    During the rally outside the Trump White House on January 6, 2021, Cawthorn used questionable rhetoric to rile up thousands of Trump loyalists gathered there, telling them they “had some fight” in them, and that they should “lightly threaten” other lawmakers who refused to try to overturn the election results. Cawthorn himself ended up voting against the certification of several state electors within the Electoral College.

    Cawthorn’s loss may result in the ending of a legal challenge to his eligibility for office. A group of North Carolina voters, led by the group Free Speech for People, had argued that Cawthorn’s attempts to overturn the election had rendered him ineligible to run under the “insurrectionist clause” of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

    A judge struck down that challenge, but those voters appealed that decision last month. Now that Cawthorn isn’t able to run in the general election, that challenge may be rendered moot, although it could be raised again if he decides to run in future campaigns.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Wisconsin GOP Candidate for Congress Fined for Bringing Loaded Gun to Airport

    A far right Republican candidate for Congress in western Wisconsin who was present during the Trump-inspired attack on the United States Capitol building has tried to board a plane with a loaded gun in his carry-on luggage.

    According to reporting from The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Derrick Van Orden was stopped by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents after they discovered a loaded 9mm Sig Sauer handgun in his possession as he passed through security at an airport in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

    The incident happened last August but received little-to-no attention at the time. Following a similar incident involving Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) late last month, however, the event involving Van Orden has received renewed interest.

    Van Orden received two fines for his indiscretion, which, according to a spokesperson for the candidate running in Wisconsin’s open Third Congressional District this year, was “purely accidental.” He ended up paying an unspecified fine to the TSA as well as being fined separately in a magistrate court in Iowa in the amount of $360. Van Orden was also ordered to take a firearms safety course, which he completed earlier this year.

    Besides bringing luggage into airport security that contained a loaded weapon, Van Orden and Cawthorn have also both been criticized for their actions on January 6, 2021 — the day a mob of loyalists to former President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in order to thwart the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

    Cawthorn, who stirred up the mob in a speech at the White House prior to the attack on Congress, is one of dozens of Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying now-President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. Van Orden, meanwhile, was part of the mob that rushed the Capitol building itself, though he continues to deny that he personally engaged in violence that day.

    Van Orden has not been charged with any crime relating to that day’s events, according to Department of Justice records.

    Days after the attack occurred, Van Orden condemned the violence, saying he was unaware of what was happening at the time. Van Orden also suggested that his presence in Washington D.C. that day was innocuous, writing in an op-ed that he was there for “meetings and to stand for the integrity of our electoral system.”

    Those claims, however, fell apart after social media postings made by Van Orden (which have since been deleted) revealed he was indeed at the Capitol building complex with the mob. Those posts showed that Van Orden was present at a part of the complex that had been closed off to the public and that could only be accessed by someone who had crossed a police barricade.

    According to reporting from The Daily Beast, Van Orden used campaign fundraising dollars in order to pay for his trip to the nation’s capital that week.

    There is no evidence that he tried to enter the building. But the way in which Van Orden originally described his day on January 6, 2021, was clearly full of omissions, his critics said.

    “Derrick Van Orden was not only part of a deadly attack on our Democracy by being on Capitol grounds while the riot erupted — he’s also lied to Wisconsinites and covered up his participation in the insurrection,” a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson said at the time of those revelations.

    In addition to his involvement at the Capitol, Van Orden also made headlines last year after he accosted a teen library worker over an LGBTQ book display at the Prairie du Chien Memorial Library. According to the worker he harangued, who was a minor at the time, the Republican candidate for Congress used “threatening” language, was “full-on shouting” at times during his tirade and demanded to know who set up the display so that he could “teach them a lesson.”

    The library page told her parents that evening that she no longer felt safe working at the library after Van Orden confronted her.

    “I was terrified that he would be outside, that there were be a collection of people outside waiting for me, waiting for anyone else,” she told The Associated Press.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Madison Cawthorn Brings Loaded Gun to Charlotte Airport

    Far right Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) was cited Tuesday morning for carrying a loaded gun while trying to enter a security checkpoint at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport — the second time he’s brought a gun to an airport in the past two years.

    The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) was called in by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) after discovering a loaded 9-millimeter handgun in one of his bags. CMPD cited Cawthorn for possession of a deadly weapon on city property, a misdemeanor violation.

    Cawthorn was released upon being given the citation, and his gun was confiscated by police.

    “Mr. Cawthorn stated that the firearm was his and he was cooperative with the CMPD officers,” a press release from the police said.

    The penalty for having a loaded weapon while trying to get through a TSA checkpoint can be as high as $13,900. Typically, the fines are higher for repeat offenders.

    This is the second instance over the past two years that Cawthorn has brought a loaded gun to a TSA checkpoint. In February 2021, Cawthorn was stopped at an airport in Asheville, North Carolina, after a loaded gun was discovered in his possession. At the time, a spokesperson for Cawthorn said that he had “erroneously stowed a firearm in his carry-on” that he sometimes used as a range bag.

    Cawthorn has previously admitted to being armed during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building. He also has a troubling history of being armed in places where dangerous weaponry is prohibited.

    Over the span of a four-week period last fall, Cawthorn brought knives to educational facilities four separate times at two different schools. In one of those instances, Cawthorn brought a knife to a political debate against Democratic challenger Jay Carey.

    According to North Carolina state statutes, it is unlawful for any person to carry the types of knives that Cawthorn had in his possession on school grounds at any time.

    Cawthorn’s actions and statements in the past few weeks — particularly his claims that some lawmakers and party insiders have invited him to sex parties — have provoked the ire of even his Republican colleagues. As a result of Cawthorn’s recent run-ins with the law, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) has suggested that perhaps the 26-year-old congressman is not mature enough to be a lawmaker.

    “Speeding tickets have happened, and driving without a license has happened,” Tillis said in a recent interview, alluding to other police interactions Cawthorn has had. “These things just speak to judgment. Judgment or maturity.”

    A group of North Carolina residents has also alleged that Cawthorn should be barred from being able to run for office at all, describing him as an insurrectionist for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and citing the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A federal judge has dismissed the complaint, but that ruling could still be appealed in the future should Cawthorn win his GOP primary race later this year.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • North Carolina Newspaper Editorial Board Decries Madison Cawthorn as “Abhorrent”

    Rep. Madison Cawthorn makes opening remarks at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas, on July 9, 2021.

    A North Carolina newspaper issued a scathing editorial this weekend, condemning the state’s Republican Party for the “despicable rhetoric” pushed by far right lawmakers, including Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R).

    The Durham Herald Sun editorial board denounced Cawthorn’s comments and conspiracy theories, noting that, in his less than two years in Congress, Cawthorn has “frequently ma[de] national headlines for all the wrong reasons.” They also rebuked Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the highest-ranking Republican in the state’s executive branch, for making similarly distasteful and incendiary comments while in office.

    The editorial board went on to say that some of the blame belonged to the state’s party leaders.

    The Republican Party of North Carolina has become “a party of extremism,” the editorial board said. “A party that, despite everything, has stood by former President Donald Trump.”

    When Republicans were willing to call out Cawthorn and Robinson, the paper went on, they insisted that their criticisms be published anonymously. Because of that, Cawthorn and Robinson’s “despicable rhetoric” has been “enabled by the Republican establishment, the vast majority of whom said and did very little to stop it.”

    The paper went on to condemn Cawthorn’s peddling of election fraud conspiracy theories, as well as his promise of “bloodshed” from Trump loyalists if election laws weren’t changed. They also denounced his recent labeling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “thug.”

    The paper’s board then reiterated its central thesis: that the Republican party was responsible for Cawthorn’s rise.

    “Cawthorn and his ilk, abhorrent as they may be, are not exactly the problem. They’re a symptom of a greater one,” the board wrote. “Because this is what happens when you spend half a decade allying yourself with the former president and allow his poisonous, incendiary trademark to go unchecked.”

    Cawthorn is running to remain in Congress in this year’s midterm elections in a new district that was drawn up as a result of the decennial redistricting process. Several voters in that district are challenging his candidacy, saying that, under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, he should be deemed ineligible to serve in any office ever again.

    Under the terms of the third clause of that amendment, anyone who has previously held an office where they’ve sworn an oath to the United States is barred from holding office again if they’ve “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the country. That prohibition can only be lifted if two-thirds of both houses of Congress vote to do so.

    Voters in Cawthorn’s district are asking the North Carolina State Board of Elections to deem Cawthorn as an insurrectionist, and thus restrict him from running for office. They’ve cited a number of reasons why he shouldn’t be allowed to serve again, including his appearance at the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol attack, where he told the crowd of Trump loyalists to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College, urging those in attendance to “lightly threaten” lawmakers that were going to approve the outcome of the 2020 presidential race.

    After the 2020 election, Cawthorn also attended dozens of meetings with Trump campaign officials to discuss ways that Trump could overturn the results, the North Carolina voters said in their complaint.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Leaked Video Shows Madison Cawthorn Calling Ukraine’s Zelenskyy a “Thug”

    Rep Madison Cawthorn speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held at the Hilton Anatole on July 9, 2021, in Dallas, Texas.

    A newly leaked video shows far right Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug” and deriding the Ukrainian government as “evil” and “woke.”

    In a short video obtained by WRAL, Cawthorn says, “Remember that Zelenskyy is a thug. Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies, and really there’s a new woke ruling.” The video was likely taken at a town hall in Asheville, North Carolina, over the weekend.

    It’s unclear what Cawthorn is referring to when he says that the Ukrainian government is pushing “woke ideologies,” but the actual meaning is likely inconsequential, as the right often lies and bends the truth to propagandize.

    However, Cawthorn’s rhetoric seems to tie the invasion to the American political right’s battle against “woke” agendas, a concerning statement as conservatives openly embrace fascism while scapegoating “woke” progressives and Democrats – or essentially, anyone who opposes them – for any and all problems that the right claims are plaguing the country.

    About an hour after the video was leaked, Cawthorn appeared to double down on his comments on Twitter. He denounced Vladimir Putin, but said that Ukrainian “[p]ropaganda is being used to entice America into another war,” and that “leaders, including Zelensky, should NOT push misinformation on America.”

    Cawthorn linked an article about “Ukrainian misinformation” that is supposedly goading the U.S. into entering into war with Russia. The linked article relied on multiple stories about the Russian invasion that have since been debunked.

    The article was written by Pedro L. Gonzalez, who is listed as an editor at the Charlemagne Institute on LinkedIn. The mission of the Charlemagne Institute, which has ties to the Koch family network, is to “defend and advance Western civilization,” a white supremacist dogwhistle. Its logo bears a resemblance to that of far right nationalists.

    In response to the video, Republican state Sen. Chuck Edwards wrote on Twitter that the real “thug is Vladimir Putin” and that anything other than support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine is “counter to everything we stand for in America.” Former George W. Bush deputy chief of staff Karl Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal, where Cawthorn’s speech was first reported, that Cawthorn’s words “[don’t] reflect Republican opinion.”

    It’s unclear why Cawthorn made these claims. It’s true that Zelenskyy has asked the U.S. for aid, specifically requesting that the U.S impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would be an act of war with likely devastating consequences. There’s no evidence that Zelenskyy is pushing disinformation in his pleas as Cawthorn claims, however.

    While it has been popular amongst Republicans in recent weeks to denounce war with Russia, this stance is an odd flip for the party that typically jumps at the chance to enter war or otherwise lift up militarism. It’s possible that Republicans are hedging their bets that President Joe Biden will enter war with Russia, in which case they can claim that they were right all along, similarly to how they flipped on exiting Afghanistan when Biden did it instead of Donald Trump.

    In recent social media posts, Cawthorn appears to be saying that he thinks that Biden is somehow at fault for injuries in Ukraine. Meanwhile, supporters of QAnon, which Cawthorn has denounced but spouted conspiracy theories from, have begun repeating Russian conspiracy theories that the U.S. is developing bioweapons in Ukraine.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • State Board Asserts Right to Decide If Cawthorn Is Eligible to Run in Midterms

    Rep. Madison Cawthorn is seen in the U.S. Capitol on November 18, 2021.

    The North Carolina State Board of Elections has asserted that it has the right to determine whether Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) is disqualified from running for office based on his role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election.

    A group of 11 state residents who reside in North Carolina’s newly-created 13th congressional district, where Cawthorn intends to run, filed a complaint with the state elections board last month. The complaint contends that Cawthorn is ineligible to compete in this year’s midterm races and cites the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars any individual who has taken an oath as a member of the U.S. Congress from serving if they have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the country.

    Cawthorn’s involvement in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election fits those parameters, the 11 residents said.

    After Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, Cawthorn attended dozens of meetings with members of the Trump administration and other lawmakers, discussing ways that the then-outgoing president could overturn the results. Cawthorn also spoke at a rally outside the White House on January 6, 2021, directly before the attack on the U.S. Capitol building; in his speech, he urged Trump loyalists to “lightly threaten” lawmakers and to demand that they back so-called “election integrity.”

    “Say [to members of Congress certifying the election results], ‘if you don’t support election integrity, I’m coming after you. Madison Cawthorn’s coming after you. Everybody’s coming after you,’” Cawthorn told Trump loyalists briefly before they breached the Capitol building.

    After the complaint from North Carolina residents was submitted to the state elections board, Cawthorn sued the panel, alleging that they did not have the authority to weigh in on the issue and that doing so would violate his First Amendment rights.

    On Monday, the North Carolina State Board of Elections responded to Cawthorn’s complaint, asserting that they had the ability to rule on the matter.

    The panel did not indicate how it planned to rule, but noted that it had the right to decide whether or not Cawthorn is eligible to run for office based on the 14th Amendment’s parameters. Cawthorn’s claims of “burden” were “dubious,” the panel said, and were ultimately “outweighed by the interest of the state and its people.”

    If the residents’ challenge moves forward, it could mean that Cawthorn will have to testify under oath before the state board to prove that he wasn’t “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” despite his role in the plot to overturn the 2020 election.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • North Carolina Voters Challenge Madison Cawthorn’s Candidacy

    Rep. Madison Cawthorn speaks to Trump supporters from the Ellipse at the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021.

    A group of voters in North Carolina has filed paperwork seeking to disqualify Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) from appearing on the ballot as a congressional candidate in this year’s midterm elections, citing the lawmaker’s incendiary comments in the hours leading up to the January 6 Capitol breach.

    Cawthorn has filed to run in North Carolina’s newly-created 13th congressional district this fall. However, some voters from the state believe that he shouldn’t be allowed to run due to his activities on the day the U.S. Capitol building was attacked by a mob of loyalists to former President Donald Trump. These voters have asserted that a provision within the Constitution prevents him from qualifying for candidacy.

    Cawthorn, an ardent Trump loyalist, spoke at the former president’s rally outside of the White House that morning. During his speech, the North Carolina Republican repeated many of Trump’s lies regarding the election, wrongly claiming that Democrats committed “fraud” in the 2020 presidential race to secure a win for President Joe Biden.

    Democrats and Republicans who refused to stand with Trump “are trying to silence your voice,” Cawthorn told the crowd that day. “Make no mistake about it, they do not want you to be heard.”

    Cawthorn also appeared to encourage the crowd’s violent behavior, lauding the fact that Trump’s loyalists “had some fight” in them. Hours later, many of those loyalists attacked Congress during its certification process of the 2020 presidential race.

    Because Cawthorn played a part in encouraging the attack on the Capitol, a group of eleven voters filed paperwork this week seeking to disqualify him from serving in Congress, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That provision, ratified in 1868, bars any person from serving in Congress (among other roles) if they’ve previously taken an oath as a federal lawmaker or officer and later “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the United States, “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

    The voters’ challenge asserts that the events of January 6, 2021, “amounted to an insurrection,” and that Cawthorn’s speech demonstrating support for Trump and false allegations of fraud provide a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that he helped those who sought to interfere in the election certification process, thereby breaking his oath to the Constitution.

    The challenge is calling for the North Carolina Board of Elections to establish a five-member panel, representing each of the five counties that the 13th district encompasses, to consider the case against allowing Cawthorn to run again.

    “The importance of defending the bedrock constitutional principle that oath breakers who engage in insurrection cannot be trusted in future office is essential to maintain,” said Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People, a group backing the challenge to Cawthorn’s candidacy.

    The voters’ bid is a longshot, as the provision was included in the amendment primarily to deal with the aftermath of the Civil War. Following the Capitol breach on January 6, however, several legal scholars suggested that the provision could potentially apply to Trump loyalists in Congress who helped encourage the attack.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Mo Brooks Says He’d Be “Proud” of His Staff If They Helped Plan January 6 Attack

    Rep. Mo Brooks addresses a "Save America" rally at York Family Farms on August 21, 2021, in Cullman, Alabama.

    Rep. Mo Brooks, a far right Republican from Alabama, has denied claims from organizers of the attack on the Capitol on January 6 that he was involved in planning the attack. Instead, Brooks has shifted blame onto his staff — while saying that he would be “proud” if his staff were involved.

    The Alabama Republican was named by January 6 organizers as one of a group of extremist right-wing representatives who met with planners of the attack, according to a bombshell report by Rolling Stone that was released over the weekend. The Alabama lawmaker’s name has also come up in previous discussions over lawmakers’ roles in the attack for inciting attackers that day. In a contentious speech, he said, “Today is the day that American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” just before attackers marched to the Capitol partly at his urging.

    While denying his own personal connection to the attack, Brooks suggested to AL.com that his staff may have been involved. “Quite frankly, I’d be proud of them if they did help organize a First Amendment rally to protest voter fraud and election theft,” he said, despite the fact that, nearly a year after the 2020 election, no evidence of widespread voter fraud has been found.

    Brooks has previously denied wrongdoing for speech on that day, saying he won’t apologize for his words. After the attack, Brooks was named by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) as someone who had a role in “instigating and aiding” the attack. He’s also been served a lawsuit over his speech by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California), which Brooks attempted to dodge by asking the Department of Justice if they would shield him from it.

    Regardless of whether Brooks is lying about his involvement — despite his lies about whether or not it was actually far right militants who carried out the attack — he has made questionable choices that suggest he may have known more about the attempted coup beforehand than he’s letting on.

    Brooks wore body armor during the January 6 rally, saying that he was warned on Monday that the attack might get violent. He took such drastic steps to protect himself that he didn’t even go home before the event, but rather slept on the floor of his office. In spite of that supposed fear, however, Brooks now says that he didn’t intend to go to the rally before the attack until that Tuesday. And then, of course, he still went and made a speech that riled up the crowd to be hungry for violence.

    In contrast, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), a likely target of the violent right-wing crowd, also took steps to protect herself before the incident, but none quite as drastic as sleeping in her office. Rather, Ocasio-Cortez said that she took off her pin identifying her as a member of Congress and avoided going outside by Tuesday — mostly because of hostile people she had noticed in public.

    By casting aside blame, Brooks may be trying to protect himself from potential consequences if his alleged ties to January 6 planners are made explicit. Prosecutors have said that lawmakers found to have conspired with the militants could face criminal liability and would not be shielded by their roles in the government. Members named by the January 6 planners in the Rolling Stone report, like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina) Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) and Paul Gosar (R-Alabama), are also facing calls to be expelled from their roles in Congress as a bare-minimum punishment.

    Consequences for officials for defying orders related to January 6 were revealed last week, when the House committee investigating January 6 voted unanimously to hold former Trump advisor Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress, recommending criminal charges to the Department of Justice.

    Not all Trump allies have defied the committee. At least five former Trump staffers have voluntarily spoken with the committee, according to CNN. However, it’s unclear what is motivating the staffers to comply, and they may well have been scared into compliance after seeing what happened to Bannon or the subpoena threats that their colleagues have received.

    Though it’s yet unclear whether the committee will call members of Congress for their alleged roles in planning the attack, the committee has subpoenaed organizers. It has also sought to gather information such as phone records on lawmakers involved with the attack, but the committee has not said who they’re probing. Still, perhaps fearing what would emerge, Brooks, Gosar, Boebert and Greene sent a letter to telecommunications companies trying to sabotage the information-gathering process.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Explosive Report Says GOP Congress Members Helped Plan Jan. 6 Capitol Attack

    Capitol rioters riot at the u.s. capitol

    “Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff,” roared the late-Sunday Rolling Stone headline. The report describes two January 6 protest insiders who claim they worked “back to back to back” with several Republican House members — Representatives Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and Marjorie Taylor Greene — and their senior staffers, who they allege were “intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.”

    These two Jan. 6 organizers “have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol,” according to Rolling Stone. “This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.”

    If confirmed, this report would put the word “bombshell” to shame, and would also go a long way toward explaining why Trump’s congressional allies have been turning themselves inside out trying to change the subject. An unfortunate grain of salt must be taken with this, however. Rolling Stone’s journalistic reputation took a hit over its reporting on the Duke University rape scandal seven years ago. Because of this, confirmation by other news outlets is essential. As of this writing, it appears only The Hill has chosen to pick up the Rolling Stone story.

    There is good reason to believe the Stone report is sound. First and foremost, it reveals that these two sources have been actively cooperating with the Jan. 6 committee, providing specific details on who was involved with which aspects of the insurrection. Such a claim could and likely would be debunked by members of that committee if it weren’t accurate.

    The Rolling Stone report comes in tandem with a damning Washington Post report detailing how space within the Willard Hotel in Washington D.C. was used as a war room for efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. “They called it the ‘command center,’” reports the Post, “a set of rooms and suites in the posh Willard hotel a block from the White House where some of President Donald Trump’s most loyal lieutenants were working day and night with one goal in mind: overturning the results of the 2020 election…. Their activities included finding and publicizing alleged evidence of fraud, urging members of state legislatures to challenge Biden’s victory and calling on the Trump-supporting public to press Republican officials in key states.”

    Central to this effort was the enormous pressure brought to bear against Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the election results on the same day as the insurrection took place. While Pence wobbled badly under the strain, seeking advice at one point from fellow former Indiana Senator Dan Quayle, he ultimately chose to certify the election results. At the peak of the day’s violence, Pence was whisked from the building by the Secret Service as a mob of furious Trump supporters stormed the halls of the Capitol demanding his head. The Willard operation was so serious, in fact, that its members brought in a retired Army colonel named Phil Waldron, who specialized in psychological operations, to aid in the overall effort.

    Multiple witnesses are set to testify under subpoena before the committee about what they knew of pre-meditated plans for violence on January 6, and how high up the chain that premeditation went. One of them, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon — who said on his podcast the day before the violence that “all hell is going to break loose” and “tomorrow is game day” — is ignoring his subpoena. By a vote of 229-202, the House approved a measure holding Bannon in contempt of Congress, and his legal fate now rests in the strangely quiescent hands of Attorney General Merrick Garland.

    There are many moving pieces to this, but a sense is growing that those involved in planning and executing the attempted overthrow of the election on Jan. 6 may be running out of room to maneuver. Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the Jan. 6 investigation committee, told CBS News on Sunday there is “no question” the attack that day was premeditated. One wonders if Thompson is among the committee members who have spoken to the sources in the Rolling Stone report. It sure sounds like it.

    Thirty years ago this week, the remnants of Hurricane Grace were engulfed by a powerful nor’easter in the waters off the Mid-Atlantic states. The combined system, jostled by a barometric ridge and a cold front, charged north as a subtropical cyclone before becoming a wildly atypical hurricane itself. The “No Name Storm,” or the “Halloween Storm,” as it came to be called, raged for days and killed 13 people. Not long after it passed, a National Weather Service forecaster named Robert Case and an adventure author named Sebastian Junger gave it a name that stuck: The Perfect Storm.

    Thirty years later, another perfect storm is brewing over Washington, D.C. If it comes together just so, the obedient minions of Donald Trump, along with Trump himself, could be exposed as active practitioners of treason within the halls of the very government they purported to serve.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Ocasio-Cortez Calls to Expel Members Who Aided Jan. 6 Plot After Fiery Report

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) speaks during a news conference on March 18, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

    Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has called for members of Congress who aided far-right organizers behind the January 6 Capitol attack in their plot to be expelled.

    Ocaiso-Cortez’s call was prompted by a report by Rolling Stone which found that officials such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) allegedly aided attackers in planning the attack.

    According to two people who planned the attack, there were “dozens” of meetings between the eventual attackers and members of Congress before the attempted coup that led to the deaths of at least nine people. The organizers name Greene, Representatives Paul Gosar (R-Arizona), Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), Mo Brooks (R-Alabama), Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina), Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) as members who aided in the attack.

    “Any member of Congress who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation’s capitol must be expelled,” wrote Ocasio-Cortez. “This was a terror attack. 138 injured, almost 10 dead. Those responsible remain a danger to our democracy, our country, and human life in the vicinity of our Capitol and beyond.”

    Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) made a similar call, emphasizing that her resolution to investigate and potentially expel members of Congress who voted against the certification of the electoral results on January 6 was even more urgent now.

    “My resolution to investigate and expel the Members of Congress who helped incite the deadly insurrection on our Capitol is just waiting for a vote. It’s inexcusable to wait any longer,” Bush wrote. “Pass H.Res 25.” The resolution, introduced shortly after the attack, garnered 54 cosponsors.

    Ocasio-Cortez had previously described the terror of feeling like she was going to die on January 6 after a close encounter in her office. “It is not an exaggeration to say that many, many members of the House were nearly assassinated,” she said at the time, adding that members’ families were also present that day.

    Even before the attack, Ocasio-Cortez has said that she had to go into hiding because of her fear of fellow lawmakers and protesters around Washington, D.C. She called, then, on people like Senators Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who were key in supporting President Donald Trump’s completely false election narrative leading up to and after the election, to resign.

    Previous evidence and allegations have also pointed to the involvement of Congress members in aiding the attackers, but this is the first time such an extensive list of specific officials has been provided by planners themselves.

    “I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” one of the planners told Rolling Stone. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.” They went on to name other lawmakers, saying, “we would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back.”

    The planners offer some details over what the members of Congress offered the attackers, including Gosar offering a “blanket pardon” in unrelated investigations to help incentivize them to plan the attack. “I was just going over the list of pardons and we just wanted to tell you guys how much we appreciate all the hard work you’ve been doing,” Gosar said, according to the source.

    “Our impression was that it was a done deal,” one of the organizers said, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”

    In return, the members of Congress also asked the organizers of the attack for finding supposed proof for the bunk conspiracy theory that there was election fraud afflicting the 2020 election.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.