Madison Cawthorn Accused Of Major Ethics Violation As Scandals Increase

Republican Representative Madison Cawthorn is now embroiled in another scandal (no, not THAT one) that threatens his career. This time, Cawthorn is being accused of skirting campaign finance laws in order to issue massive payouts to one of his friends who also happens to work on his staff. Farron Cousins explains how the scheme works and why it is just another nail in the coffin for Cawthorn's political career.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Well folks, Madison Cawthorn is embroiled in yet another scandal and no, this one does not have anything to do with any videos or photographs or anything like that. This is not about Madison cath Thorn's personal life. This is an actual real scandal that really threatens his campaign. Uh, the daily beast has uncovered evidence that Cawthorn may have violated both ethics rules and campaign finance rules by overpaying. One of his friends who just happens to be serving as his chief of staff, the, uh, friend is a man by the name of Blake harp. And here's what it says. After looking over Cawthorns filings, it appears they were trying to keep harp just under the senior staff level to pay him well above what he's allowed to make from the campaign, but may not have been able to successfully pull off the scheme. That's according to Jordan Leitz, who is the director of communi communications for the group citizens for responsibility in ethics in Washington, he continued while harp stayed a couple hundred dollars under the senior staff limit for the year.

The rule is actually making above that rate for more than 90 days, which it appears that he did in the fourth, fourth quarter, which was 92 days. So if that seems a little confusing, let me explain to you what happened. Senior staffers are not allowed to make more than $29,000 and some change each year outside of their congressional pay. And of course, that is limited to that very small number so that these people aren't moonlighting out there and getting money from, you know, lobbyists and contractors and whoever so that the office stays free of influence. But people who make below that amount, which, uh, the amount is a little over 130, $1,000 a year, like literally just a couple hundred dollars over that people who make under that amount are allowed to make a little bit more following me so far. Good. Mr. Harp was paid through his congressional salary, 130, $1,278 last year. So that, like I said is below just a couple hundred dollars below the amount that would allow him to basically make unlimited amounts of money outside of his congressional salary. And as it turns out, call Thorn's campaign paid Mr. Harp, $73,237 last year.

And if they had been paying close attention, they would have gotten away with it. But as the folks from citizens for responsibility in ethics and Washington point out congressional salary is measured in 90

Day intervals, you know, every quarter. And because the fourth quarter, they slipped up and actually ended up paying Mr. Harp a little bit more. It did push him over the threshold to where the $73,000 that he got paid from the campaign would in fact be illegal. I know that all seems a little complicated, right? Because the money and the days and how much you make in this point, determines how much you can do there. But basically they overpaid this guy on accident, which means that the campaign payment they made to him for $73,000 was illegal. Like I said, this is a real scandal that warrants a real investigation. Okay. This isn't like stupid little videos that come out, that people trying to smear him and all that, you know, that's personal issues. I don't care about that. What I do care about is this investigation.

What I do care about is the fact that the guy looks like he was involved in an insider trading scheme with the let's go brand and crypto currency. And we still don't have an investigation into that either nothing that Callthorne touches seems to work out well. And that is honestly what Republican should be harping on is they try to unseat him. You're focusing on these personal, personal issues trying to say, oh, we think he's secretly gay. You got real scandals right here that could actually result in actual jail time. Maybe focus on these and leave his personal life out of it because he's got more than enough real scandals that should cause him to lose his seat this year. If Republicans actually cared about people being involved in real scandals.