Madison Cawthorn Says Sexual Misconduct Allegations Are False, Addressed During Election [View all]
Source: Newsweek
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) denied renewed allegations that he sexually harassed multiple women during his time in college on Friday.
Allegations that Cawthorn, a 25-year-old rising star of the Republican party's right wing, was responsible for a string of sexual harassment incidents during his short time at Patrick Henry College were highlighted in a BuzzFeed News article published on Friday. Cawthorn was elected to Congress in November. Similar claims of sexual harassment and assault were an issue during the campaign.
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Cawthorn left Patrick Henry College, a small Christian liberal arts school in Virginia, after finishing one semester in 2016. The future congressman earned mostly "D" grades that he attributed to injuries sustained in a car crash that left him unable to walk about two years earlier, according to The Asheville Citizen-Times.
Several women who attended the college at the same time have accused Cawthorn of sexual harassment during off-campus "joy rides" in his car, Buzzfeed reported.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/madison-cawthorn-says-sexual-misconduct-allegations-are-false-addressed-during-election/ar-BB1e41Y7?ocid=hplocalnews
When you have a right wing media ecosystem where networks compete to provide a safe place for racists QAnon supporters, is it any wonder that its rising stars consist of folks like Cawthorn and Greene?
Madison Cawthorn arrived at Patrick Henry College’s small Christian campus in northern Virginia in fall 2016 blazing with charm, bravado, and a flashing white smile. His former classmates said the future member of Congress would whip his white Dodge Challenger into the parking lot and regale his classmates with the story of how he survived a harrowing car crash as a teen, which left him paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair for life. After his intensive recovery, he was older than most students — 21 — and didn’t fit the mold of the Christian and largely sheltered first-year students who chose the conservative school in Purcellville because of its commitment to God and rigorous academics. And, former Patrick Henry students said, it didn’t take long for women on campus to start warning one another: You don’t want to be alone with him, especially in his car.
BuzzFeed News spoke with more than three dozen people, including more than two dozen former students, their friends, and their relatives, who described or corroborated instances of sexual harassment and misconduct on campus, in Cawthorn’s car, and at his house near campus. Four women told BuzzFeed News that Cawthorn, now a rising Republican star, was aggressive, misogynistic, or predatory toward them. Their allegations include calling them derogatory names in public in front of their peers, including calling one woman “slutty,” asking them inappropriate questions about their sex lives, grabbing their thighs, forcing them to sit in his lap, and kissing and touching them without their consent. One of these women now works as an intern for another Republican member of Congress and passes Cawthorn in the corridors of the Capitol. According to more than a dozen people — including three women who had firsthand experience and seven people who heard about these incidents from them at the time — Cawthorn often used his car as a way to entrap and harass his women classmates, taking them on what he could call “fun drives'' off campus. Two said he would drive recklessly and ask them about their virginity and sexual experiences while they were locked in the moving vehicle.
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Today, Cawthorn is a 25-year-old first-year member of Congress, the youngest ever elected, from Hendersonville, North Carolina. In the 2020 primary, he pulled off a surprising upset over Republican Lynda Bennett, former president Donald Trump’s preferred candidate, by leaning into Trump’s own strategy: bombastic attacks against the left and open support for conspiracy theories.
Cawthorn has made his Christian faith a central part of his political identity, going so far as to say in an interview with Jewish Insider soon after winning his race last November that he has tried to convert Jewish and Muslim people to Christianity. “The Lord and the Bible and the value systems I’ve gotten through Judeo-Christian values,” he said, “it affects every single decision I make.” He also posts often about his faith on Instagram, sharing photos of the Bible and writing about how much prayer and the Lord uplift and guide him through life’s “battlefields.”
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