Madison Cawthorn is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.
In case you missed the many, many headlines surrounding the rookie representative’s disastrous couple of days, here’s a brief rundown: he got caught trying to sneak a loaded gun into an airport, photos showing him wearing women’s jewelry and lingerie were leaked by a former member of his inner circle, and he accused his fellow Republicans of targeting him. Weirdly enough, Cawthorn likely viewed all of these fiascos as good press since he could use most to paint himself as the victim of a coordinated attack by Washington, D.C. insiders — which is exactly what he did. But his latest scandal is going to be a bit harder to spin.
According to the Washington Examiner, multiple watchdog groups have reported that Cawthorn may have violated federal insider trading law after failing to report his stake in the cryptocurrency named after a derogatory anti-Joe Biden chant, “Let’s Go, Brandon.”
In December of 2021, Cawthorn shared a photo of himself and LGBCoin founder James Koutoulas partying together with a caption that read, “LGB legends. … Tomorrow we go to the moon!” Despite publicly stating he bought a stake in LGBCoin, Cawthorn failed to report it, which violates rules that require members of Congress to report crypto purchases. The following day, Dec. 30th, 2021, Cawthorn’s prediction that LGBCoin’s value would rise came true after NASCAR driver Brandon Brown announced he would be sponsored by the crypto brand.
Watchdog groups monitoring the situation think there’s enough evidence of insider trading laws being broken to take Cawthorn down, pointing to his social media post and its timing related to Brown’s announcement, which shot the price of LGBCoin up by 75%.
“This looks really, really bad,” Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, from federal watchdog group Project on Government Oversight told The Washington Examiner. “This does look like a classic case of you got some insider information and acting on that information. And that’s illegal.”
Other insiders claim Cawthorn could face prison time if investigators prove he had nonpublic information about the crypto brand’s planned deal with Brown before purchasing a stake in it. A member of Cawthorn’s own party, Republican Senator Thom Tillis also spoke out against the young Congressman’s crypto scheme:
“Insider trading by a member of Congress is a serious betrayal of their oath, and Congressman Cawthorn owes North Carolinians an explanation,” Tillis said. “There needs to be a thorough and bipartisan inquiry into the matter by the House Ethics Committee.”
(Via Washington Examiner)