Will Madison Cawthorn Disqualify Himself?
A series of scandals has occupied the youngest member of Congress even as his lawyers endeavor to beat back attempts to end his political career in the courtroom.
While Republicans fret about efforts to use the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment to block members of their party from appearing on ballots by labeling them “insurrectionists,” one of the prime targets, Representative Madison Cawthorn, appears intent on disqualifying himself.
A series of scandals has occupied the youngest member of Congress even as his lawyers endeavor to beat back attempts to end his political career in the courtroom. Run-ins with law enforcement — he has twice tried to bring a loaded gun through airport security — and a video that showed him nude in bed with a friend have fostered the impression of a man off the rails.
Mr. Cawthorn labeled that nude photograph, disseminated by a group called American Muckrakers that is devoted to attacking the congressman, an act of “blackmail,” while admitting that he and the other individual captured were “being crass.” He describes the disclosure as part of a “a drip drip campaign.”
Mr. Cawthorn’s troubles are varied. The Daily Beast alleged that Mr. Cawthorn ran afoul of compensation rules in payments to his chief of staff. There are also photographs showing him in lingerie on a cruise, which the congressman labeled as “goofy vacation photos.” He hemorrhaged support from hawkish quarters when he called President Zelensky “a thug.”
The Washington Examiner reports that Mr. Cawthorn is under investigation for insider trading related to a “Let’s Go Brandon cryptocurrency.” There is a video appearing to show Mr. Cawthorn inappropriately touching a member of his campaign staff in a car.
On the legal front, Mr. Cawthorn’s district court victory over Free Speech for People, the group spearheading the disqualification push, appears shakier after riders of the Fourth United States Appeals Circuit expressed skepticism that an 1872 law, the Amnesty Act, could protect Mr. Cawthorn in the present.
One of the judges who heard the appeal, James Wynn, asked, “Why would you rather take away a disability of an individual who’s going against the United States?” He was referring to the argument that the Disqualification Clause has been permanently defanged.
The legal director for Free Speech, Ronald Fein, tells the Sun that “none of the three appellate judges seemed impressed by Cawthorn’s theory” that “an 1872 congressional amnesty for ex-Confederates applies to Madison Cawthorn.”
Mr. Fein predicts that the appellate judges “will find that the lower court was wrong to shut out the North Carolina voters who filed the challenge to Cawthorn’s candidacy.”
Mr. Cawthorn’s attorney, James Bopp Jr., disagrees. He tells the Sun that “there are two dozen ways we can win this case,” even as he acknowledges that “probing questions were asked of both sides.”
Mr. Bopp linked the effort to disqualify Mr. Cawthorn to the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion — which he called “the most destructive act that has ever been committed” against the high court — suggesting that both displayed disdain for institutions “and even democracy itself.”
Mr. Cawthorn’s travails have put the GOP in a difficult position, facing worries that Mr. Cawthorn is a political liability even as his case is part of an effort that has already explicitly targeted a 2024 presidential run by Donald Trump.
For Mr. Cawthorn, the attempt to cudgel him with the Constitution offers an opportunity to portray himself as the tip of the spear in the battle against Democrats and as someone in the same boat as Mr. Trump, who has endorsed the Tar Heel Republican.
As Mr. Cawthorn does so, he will have to wage a rearguard action against what he called in an Instagram post “the establishment and the RINOs,” whom he accused of endeavoring to sabotage his re-election campaign. A Tar Heel State senator, Thomas Tillis, has backed one of Mr. Cawthorn’s primary foes.
This comes on the heels of a confrontation with the House’s minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who turned on Mr. Cawthorn after the latter claimed he was invited to “orgies” in the nation’s capital. That claim prompted the more senior lawmaker to declare that Mr. Cawthorn had “lost my trust.”
Voters will ratify or reject that state of affairs in the Republican primary next week, on May 17. They are only one half of the equation. To return to Congress, Mr. Cawthorn would also have to convince judges that he is fit to serve.
