In what should come as a shock to absolutely no one, Maddy Cawthorn made over $250,000 profit on his crypto scam, fleecing his own supporters . Madison Cawthorn reaped profits with crypto 'pump and dump' scheme, filing shows https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...with-crypto-pump-and-dump-scheme-filing-shows Outgoing Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) revealed Friday he sold upward of $250,000 of the Let's Go Brandon meme cryptocurrency on Dec. 31, 2021, the day it saw its market value peak. Less than a month later, the meme coin had lost 100% of its value. Multiple watchdogs told the Washington Examiner that the filing bolsters their suspicions that Cawthorn engaged in an insider trading scheme with the meme coin, whose leaders face a class-action lawsuit for allegedly scamming retail traders by orchestrating a "pump and dump" scheme with the coin. "It's very damning," said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen. "The timing is spot on for what suggests to be insider trading. He buys the stock, it increases dramatically in value, and he sells it at the peak moment. That's what appeared to be what was going on in the first place, and this really confirms it." The Washington Examiner reported Cawthorn may have implicated himself in an insider trading scheme when he posed with LGB coin ringleader James Koutoulas at a party on Dec. 29. Cawthorn posted on Instagram that evening in response to the photo: "LGB legends. ... Tomorrow we go to the moon!" The next day, LGB did exactly as Cawthorn predicted. NASCAR driver Brandon Brown announced on Dec. 30 that the meme coin would be the primary sponsor of his 2022 season, causing LGB's value to spike by 75%. Koutoulas was directly involved in negotiating the deal between LGB and Brown, according to Brown's statement. Cawthorn disclosed in his periodic transaction report filed Friday that he purchased between $100,001 to $250,000 worth of LGB on Dec. 21. Cawthorn was pictured holding an LGB coin button and posing with Koutoulas weeks earlier on Dec. 5. Cawthorn also disclosed in the filing that he sold a portion of his LGB holdings on Dec. 31 for between $100,001 and $250,000. Cawthorn saw his investment in the coin increase by upward of a staggering 97% during the 10-day period he held the coin, according to LGB's market data. "This looks like a pretty classic 'pump and dump' scheme," said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Did he have inside information? It sure appears that way," Libowitz told the Washington Examiner. "He's hanging out with the guy, announced it was going to spike the next day. The next day it spiked, and then he sells a portion of it. We don't know exactly how much he sold since he said it's partial, but he sells it the next day." LGB's market value suffered a precipitous decline beginning just one day after Cawthorn offloaded upward of $250,000 of the coin onto the market. The coin's troubles compounded on Jan. 4 after NASCAR rejected the coin's sponsorship deal with Brown. By the end of January, the market cap of the meme coin dropped all the way to $0. Koutoulas blamed the coin's implosion in part on unidentified insiders who dumped their outsize holdings of the coin all at once, he said in a Feb. 20 livestream. The swift rise and fall of the meme coin led one jilted investor to file a class-action lawsuit in April accusing Koutoulas and other LGB insiders of using the digital currency to orchestrate a "pump and dump" scheme. Cawthorn isn't named as a defendant in the class-action lawsuit, but he is identified as one of the coin's celebrity endorsers that helped Koutoulas inflate the coin's market value before the rug was pulled on retail traders. LGB relaunched in February, but it is trading 99% below its peak price set the day Cawthorn sold his holdings in the meme coin. After LGB's crash, Cawthorn appeared at multiple events with Koutoulas and repeatedly urged his followers to buy the coin. "I got Let's Go Brandon coin," Cawthorn said at the Conservative Political Action Conference, according to a video Koutoulas posted to his Instagram page in late February. "It's working out well, very well." Cawthorn promoted the coin again with Koutoulas in March during the American Freedom Tour in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "This is going to the moon, baby! To the moon!" Cawthorn said while pointing to an LGB coin logo pinned to Koutoulas's suit jacket. "Letsgobrandon.com — get on the train. Get on the train. Take the power of currency away from the government." The House Ethics Committee voted unanimously on Monday to launch an investigation into Cawthorn for his promotion of LGB. The move came weeks after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) called on the ethics committee to investigate whether Cawthorn engaged in an insider trading scheme with the coin. Both Holman and Libowitz said the ethics committee only has jurisdiction over the matter while Cawthorn remains in office. Cawthorn is set to depart Congress in January following his primary defeat to state Sen. Chuck Edwards on May 17. "The House Ethics Committee should proceed very quickly on this," Holman said. "It seems like all the evidence is crystal clear. But what the House Ethics Committee can do if it goes a little late is they can refer to the [Securities and Exchange Commission] and let the SEC continue pursuing insider trading charges." "The SEC may be interested in picking this up independently," Holman added. "The SEC has grown increasingly concerned about bitcoin operations. So they may very well pick this up." Both Cawthorn and Koutoulas rejected allegations that Cawthorn had insider knowledge when he traded LGB in December. Both issued statements saying information about the coin's deal was public knowledge when he purchased the coin. But neither Cawthorn nor Koutoulas were able to provide any records to the Washington Examiner showing that the deal was public knowledge in early December. The Washington Examiner has been unable to find any public mentions from Brown about the LGB sponsorship deal before its Dec. 30 announcement. Brown made no mention of the deal in interviews with the New York Times and Sports Business Journal in late December. And Brown made no mention of LGB when he gave a shoutout to his sponsors in a lengthy Twitter thread posted on Dec. 18. Cawthorn's office did not return a request for comment. (More Tweets and information at above url)
Madison Cawthorn Is Accused of Yet Another Conflict-of-Interest Violation https://www.thedailybeast.com/madis...-violation-with-lets-go-brandon-crypto-trades Rep. Madison Cawthorn, the controversial (and outgoing) Republican from North Carolina, appears to have violated a federal conflict-of-interest law after reporting between $290,000 and $950,000 in cryptocurrency trades on Wednesday morning, Business Insider reported. According to the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, members of Congress must report financial transactions of more than $1,000 within 45 days. Cawthorn waited almost six months after he bought and sold currency like ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ coin. Cawthorn is already under investigation by the House Committee on Ethics for potential insider-trading violations related to the Let’s Go Brandon coin, and for allegedly having an improper relationship with a staffer. Business Insider reported in May that Cawthorn had waited too long to disclose another slew of crypto trades. At most, Cawthorn could receive a $200 fine, which the House Committee on Ethics could waive. His office didn’t respond to Business Insider’s request for comment. Read it at Business Insider
And they have the receipts... Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s Gift Receipts To Aide Stephen Smith Suggest ‘Inappropriate’ Relationship https://upolitics.com/news/rep-madi...hen-smith-suggest-inappropriate-relationship/ In messages uncovered by a political activist group, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-South Carolina) appears to have broken House rules concerning his relationship with a staffer. The evidence was submitted to the Office of Congressional Ethics by the Fire Madison Cawthorn group, an organization run by the American Muckrakers PAC. With the evidence uncovered, they accused Cawthorn of sending thousands of dollars in gifts to a staffer, Stephen Smith. Some of the notes attached to the Venmo receipts read: “Getting naked for me in Sweden,” “the stuff we did in Amsterdam,” “the quickie at the airport,” and “breaking and entering.” The receipts suggest an intimate relationship with Smith and a possible love affair with his staffer. The new evidence comes after a video was leaked of Cawthorn lying naked with another man. Cawthorn claimed the footage was “blackmail,” and the video was just him “being crass with a friend.” In another video, Cawthorn and Smith made suggestive comments to each other before Smith placed his hand on Cawthorn’s crotch. “I feel the passion and desire, and would like to see a naked body beneath my hands,” Cawthorn said. Smith replied, “me too.” The group claimed Cawthorn’s relationship was “separate and apart from the professional relationship” expected between Cawthorn and his employee. Upon further investigation, the activists found more messages and receipts titled “for loving me daily and nightly” and “nudes.” During a honeymoon in Saudi Arabia, Smith was reported to have joined Cawthorn and his now-ex wife. The celebration happened eight months before Cawthorn’s eventual divorce from his wife, Cristina Bayardelle. Cawthorn was defeated in the GOP primary, so he will not be returning to Congress for a second term. The ethics case against him is continuing to move forward.
And the latest on Madison... Cawthorn Campaign Illegally Spent Funds It Wasn’t Supposed to Touch Madison Cawthorn’s campaign wasn’t supposed to touch the money it had for the general election. Guess what the campaign did. https://www.thedailybeast.com/madis...egally-spent-funds-it-wasnt-supposed-to-touch With two weeks to go until a primary election he was fated to lose, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) was already underwater. His campaign held more than twice as much debt as it had cash on hand, the donor well was dry, and he and his staff were months into a madcap spending streak that one campaign source called “baffling.” And now, after indeed losing that primary, there’s no money to pay the piper. Specifically, there’s no money to repay the supporters who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in advance to Cawthorn’s election efforts beyond the primary—to the general election he now won’t be competing in. Cawthorn is required by law to refund those donations. Instead, according to a campaign source, the campaign already spent the money. The public doesn’t know any of this yet, however, because the Cawthorn campaign is now a week late in submitting the quarterly Federal Election Commission report that would disclose the collapse. That delay will already trigger an automatic fine. The breach of fiduciary obligations follows a string of personal and professional embarrassments that hounded the one-term congressman across the weeks and months leading up to his primary defeat—accusations of insider trading, multiple alleged ethics violations, unforced public gaffes, and photo and video leaks designed to humiliate him. But the campaign’s financial washout is more than another embarrassment; it’s against the law. “Nobody ever did the math, which baffled me because the spending was so outrageous,” the campaign source told The Daily Beast. This person pointed to a spree of frivolous charges over the last year that all accelerated into 2022, such as $1,500 in “egregiously” frequent trips to Chick-Fil-A, almost $3,000 at a place called Papa’s Beer, three separate charges at a high-end cigar shop, $21,000 for lodging in Florida and—the biggest drain—hundreds of thousands of dollars in sky-high consulting and fundraising fees, including for Cawthorn’s friend and campaign manager, Blake Harp, who was drawing a salary beyond federal limits. Cawthorn couldn’t raise money to offset this burn rate, which was so high that, by May 5, the campaign had just 2 percent of the $3.7 million it had raised since January 2021. In truth, the source said, the campaign had been forced to tap its general election account months ago. Federal election laws allow candidates to raise money for the primary and the general election at the same time. But candidates can’t spend the general election funds unless they win the primary, first. If you don’t win, you have to repay those donors. Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beat that there’s not much wiggle room, and Cawthorn will likely face consequences. “There are few more ironclad rules in campaign finance than you can’t spend general election funds in a primary,” Libowitz said. “There are strict limits on how much may be given and spent in each. If Cawthorn spent funds raised for the general during the primary and made no attempt to refund the general donations, he’ll likely be in a lot of trouble with the FEC.” According to available data, Cawthorn’s jilted donors include friends and neighbors in western North Carolina, nearly three dozen retirees from Bakersfield to Boca Raton, a former Army major, billionaire GOP megadonors Bernie Marcus, Steve Wynn, John Childs, and H. Ross Perot Jr, and powerful Republican colleagues, including political committees tied to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). Cawthorn owes them $220,080.85. As of May 5, the most recent snapshot available, his campaign had a little more than $137,000 on hand, and owed $325,000 in debt. The campaign also failed to pay several vendors on time, according to two people with direct knowledge of the agreements. Brendan Fischer, deputy director at good government watchdog Documented, agreed that the law is “clear-cut.” “Candidates can’t use general election funds in the primary, and if the candidate loses their primary, they must return general election funds to maxed-out contributors within 60 days,” Fischer told The Daily Beast. “The law around this is clear-cut so the FEC will take violations pretty seriously.” In Cawthorn’s case, the 60-day clock ran out last Saturday, the day after the report was due. “There was just no money,” the campaign source said. “It was dollar-in, dollar-out. So if he loses it’s a really bad thing, and the only way to cover it is getting money straight from the candidate or treasurer.” The treasurer, however, could also be on the hook for legal penalties. Cawthorn’s hired treasurer quit last Friday—the day the campaign report was due—with the freshman congressman personally taking his place. But Cawthorn—who won a $3 million insurance settlement, and other payouts, for damages sustained in the 2014 wreck that paralyzed his legs—would also appear to have access to cash, and he has loaned his campaign money before. (Last week he dropped a $30 million lawsuit against his former best friend, who had been driving the car.) Beth Rotman, director of ethics at watchdog Common Cause, told The Daily Beast there’s a third option. “In practice, many people may start spending this money in the primary and pay it back; it’s a risk, but it may not be uncommon,” Rotman said, pointing out that the Cawthorn campaign can raise money to pay down its debts. “He needs to make this right by fundraising, and a lot of rules require that he do that staying within contribution limits.” In essence, Cawthorn would be asking donors to pay his other donors for him. And the pool of enthusiastic Cawthorn supporters would appear limited, especially considering his top contributors are the people on the payback list. Another option: Start a new campaign and forward the money. The campaign source told The Daily Beast that this idea had been discussed internally, but Cawthorn balked. “He didn’t want to run,” the person said. On May 17, Cawthorn conceded the primary to state senator Chuck Edwards before all the votes were in. Two days later, he posted cryptically on Instagram, calling for “for Dark MAGA to truly take command” and including a list of right-wing figures he admired. “This list includes the lion share [sic] of figures that came to my defense when it was not politically profitable,” Cawthorn wrote. Among them was GOP strategist Alexander Bruesewitz. Cawthorn owes him $2,100.
More details from the right-wing Daily Caller... Madison Cawthorn Can’t Afford To Repay Supporters After Illegally Spending Campaign Funds https://dailycaller.com/2022/07/24/madison-cawthorn-campaign-funds-illegal-spending/