The “Swamp” is eager to make an example of recently ousted MAGA troublemaker Madison Cawthorn.
Congress is launching ethics investigations into the lame duck North Carolina Republican even after he lost a recent primary, Axios reported.
Congress to investigate
The investigation has the backing of all Democrats and Republicans on the House Ethics committee, in a sign of how deeply the “America First” conservative has fallen out of favor during his brief time in Washington.
The probes will look at complaints that Cawthorn had an “improper relationship” with a staffer, as well a report in the Washington Examiner that Cawthorn promoted a “Let’s Go Brandon” cryptocurrency “in which he may have had an undisclosed financial interest.”
It comes after a political group opposed to Cawthorn filed a complaint claiming that Cawthorn failed to disclose housing, loans, and other gifts he provided to a staffer who is also a cousin, Stephen Smith.
Cawthorn’s staff dismissed the House’s investigation as a political hit job, adding that they “welcome the opportunity to prove that Congressman Cawthorn committed no wrongdoing.”
“This inquiry is a formality. Our office isn’t deterred in the slightest from completing the job the patriots of Western North Carolina sent us to Washington to accomplish,” the statement continued.
Forced out
Cawthorn, 26, was the youngest member of Congress when elected in 2020. The freshman lawmaker’s brash, provocative style and various personal indiscretions quickly got him into trouble with the bi-partisan establishment in Washington.
Cawthorn lost a primary last week despite an endorsement from Donald Trump, who said Cawthorn still deserved conservatives’ support despite making some “foolish mistakes.”
The young Republican angered party leaders when he alleged that he had been invited to orgies in Washington and saw colleagues using cocaine, and a remark calling Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug” also saw blowback.
In the weeks before his primary, Cawthorn complained of being targeted in a “drip, drip” campaign as a series of lewd images of him surfaced in the media, including a video of a nude Cawthorn thrusting his crotch into a man’s face that Cawthorn described as “crass” shenanigans with a friend.
After his ouster, Cawthorn called for “Dark MAGA” to rise up against the Republican party establishment, saying the “time for genteel politics as usual has come to an end.”