Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-Henderson) speaks at a rally in Macon County in July, 2020. Cory Vaillancourt photo
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regardless of when this video was taken. We don’t have any further comment at this time.” Cawthorn acknowledged the authenticity of the video in a tweet, but didn’t provide information on where, when or by whom the video was shot. “A new hit against me just dropped.” Cawthorn wrote. “Years ago, in this video, I was being crass with a friend, trying to be funny. We were acting foolish, and joking. “A new hit against me just dropped. That’s it. I’m NOT “Years ago, in this video, I was being backing down. I told you there would be a crass with a friend, trying to be funny. drip drip campaign. Blackmail won’t win. We were acting foolish, and joking.” We will.” — Rep. Madison Cawthorn North Carolina’s Primary Election will take place on Tuesday, May 17, although in-person early voting is have consequences. This video was passed nearly halfway complete. Cawthorn faces a to us by a former supporter and big donor field of seven Republican challengers. If no of Rep. Cawthorn that wishes to remain single candidate gets more than 30% of the anonymous. Only Madison Cawthorn vote, a runoff between the top two finishers knows the date, location, names and ages of will take place on Tuesday, July 26. participants, or whether they are Cawthorn Six Democrats are also vying for the staff. Ask him for any of this information. right to face the Republican nominee in We do not know those details. We do know November. Rep. Cawthorn shouldn’t be in Congress safe-for-work video continues, until finally someone off camera calls the naked man “Madison” and asks him to stop. David B. Wheeler, president of the PAC, issued the following statement on the website: “Madison Cawthorn should resign from Congress today. While his sexual orientation or behavior behind closed doors is no interest whatsoever to us, his actions should
Video shows Rep. Cawthorn in compromising scene
Web host yanks Cawthorn video, PAC hacked
tent was never posted on the site, nor was it able to be viewed by visitors to the site. Wheeler also noted that the website’s bandwidth settings had been downgraded, causing latency issues with the site while it was up. He thinks it was all a hack. “I mean, the timing was just too coincidental to have not been directly related,” he said. After being down for around 18 hours, the website was re-launched – sans video – on the morning of May 6. “At that point, we were well over 300,000 downloads so we didn’t care,” Wheeler said. Wheeler said the video drew record traffic to the site, especially after major news sites and Twitter influencers took note of it on the evening of May 4. Since then it’s been mentioned in Rolling Stone and on comedian Trevor Noah’s The Daily Show. — Cory Vaillancourt, Politics Editor
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Just 24 hours after posting a graphic video of controversial congressman Madison Cawthorn, the web host of the site where it first appeared demanded the video be removed, citing terms of service violations. “I guess it was considered adult in nature,” said David Wheeler, president of American Muckrakers PAC, better known as firemadison.com. “They never really told us.” While the site was down, Wheeler said they discovered someone had inserted pornographic content into the folders on the back end of the website where photos and videos were stored. The pornographic con-
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remain anonymous.” The PAC has mercilessly hounded Cawthorn with ethics complaints, leaked audio from whistleblowers and other grievances since shortly after Cawthorn was elected. In the video, which looks to have been shot in a hotel room, a man who appears to be Cawthorn is seen in a state of undress grinding on another person while uttering an exaggerated series of grunts and groans. The other person is only seen for a moment, and has not yet been identified. Others in the room laugh as the not-
May 11-17, 2022
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS E DITOR et another video that depicts embattled Western North Carolina Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn in a compromising situation has surfaced, according to a story first reported May 4 by The News & Observer. The story cites the American Muckrakers PAC, better known as firemadison.com, as the source of the video. A statement on the firemadison.com website says the video was sent to the PAC by a former supporter “who asked to
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