North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn has sued his state’s board of elections in response to a group of voters who want to keep him off the ballot by citing the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on service by those who engaged in ‘insurrection or rebellion’ against the country.
Cawthorn, who has also bashed the suit in public comments, is seeking an injunction to be able to remain on the ballot despite the filing.
‘Running for political office is quintessential First Amendment activity and afforded great protection,’ his complaint says, the Charlotte Observer reported.
Cawthorn also dismissed as ‘asinine’ a suit filed by a group of state voters seeking to disqualify him from the ballot for being ‘involved in efforts to intimidate Congress and the Vice President into rejecting valid electoral votes and subvert the essential constitutional function of an orderly and peaceful transition of power.’
That suit cites provisions of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, to prevent former Confederate leaders from serving in Congress after taking part in the rebellion. It says Cawthorn and others took actions that ‘led directly, intentionally, and foreseeably to the insurrectionists’ violent assault on the Capitol.’
Cawthorn spoke near the White House on Jan. 6th, at the same event where Trump urged supporters to ‘fight’ in advance of the Capitol riot at the Capitol.
‘The Democrats, with all the fraud they have done in this election, the Republicans, hiding and not fighting – they are trying to silence your voice,’ Cawthorn said at the rally, which came on the day Congress met to count the electoral votes.
North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn is suing his state’s board of elections in response to an effort by a group of voters to keep him off the ballot. ‘Trump has become like a father to me,’ Cawthorn told the Daily Caller. He says the two men speak daily
‘At 12:00 today, we will be contesting the election,’ he said, while bashing Republicans who ‘sit idly by’ amid the electoral fight. ‘They have no backbone,’ he said.
The Charlotte Observer editorial board called the attempt to keep Cawthorn off the ballot ‘misguided,’ even in an editorial where it called him ‘a frequent source of shame to North Carolina’ who ‘displays little to no semblance of a moral compass, [and] regularly deals in fictitious and potentially seditious rhetoric.’
The legal fight in North Carolina played out days after Trump said in a statement that former Vice President Mike Pence had the right to ‘overturn’ the election.
Cawthorn commented on the effort to keep him off the ballot in an interview with the Daily Caller in an interview, where he also gushed about Trump, saying he was ‘like a father’ to the 26-year old lawmaker.
‘Trump has become like a father to me, I get to talk to him every single day. He’s incredible, he’s a genius,’ Cawthorn told the publication.
He was responding to an initial question of what first comes to mind when he hears the words ‘DeSantis’ and ‘Trump’ – in reference to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Trump denies a political rivalry between them.
‘Being 26 years old obviously I don’t have a ridiculous amount of experience with dealing with foreign policy yet,’ Cawthorn continued. ‘So if I can just call the former president of the United States and say, ‘hey, what would you do in this situation?’ and he can tell me exactly what the whole background is to it. So I love him. He’s been very good to me and he’s been so good to our country.
Trump and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows backed Cawthorn’s opponent in his first primary campaign, but Trump has since welcomed Cawthorn into the political fold, inviting him to speak at the 2020 Republican National Convention.
‘I get to talk to him every single day,’ Cawthorn said of Former President Donald Trump
Cawtorn has announced he is divorcing wife Cristina Bayardelle. He blasted an online conspiracy theory that she was part of a honeypot operation. He says he was introduced to Cristina through a friend he met at Blackjack tables in St. Petersburg, Russia
He was also asked to name the ‘top three squishiest Republicans in Congress.’
He ended up selecting only Jan. 6th Committee member Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). He said he wouldn’t call Trump nemesis Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). squishy. ‘She’s just who she is,’ he said.
‘There’s a guy in Ohio,’ he said, failing to recall the name, saying he would send it along to his interviewer later.
He also blasted a ‘ridiculous’ online conspiracy theory that his wife, Cristina Bayardelle Cawthorn, whom he is divorcing, was introduced to him as part of a ‘honeypot’ operation.
He said in a previous interview he was introduced to her in Florida by his friend Todd, who he met on a cruise to St. Petersburg, Russia.
‘I was on a cruise with my best friend. We were in port in St. Petersburg. And when we were in St. Petersburg I was playing a game of 21, Blackjack, and I happened to meet a really good friend of mine, Todd. And then about a year or two later I went down to Florida and he introduced me to Cristina. It was a wild situation how they thought that that means that I’m a Chinese – a Russian asset – that she’s some Russian honeypot that was sent to distract me and get me to work for the Kremlin,’ he said.