From Staff Reports

HENDERSONVILLE — First-term U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-Hendersonville, is proving to be a standout as a fundraiser — and spender — in Congress.

Cawthorn, who at 25 is the youngest member of Congresss, raised $1.8 million and spent $1.5 million between Jan. 1 and June 30, topping all members of Congress from North Carolina, based on campaign finance reports released July 15.

Cawthorn’s fundraising and spending puts him in the top 2 pecent of 1,419 House candidates.

Regarding questions about Cawthorn’s fundraising/spending ranking, Micah Bok, Cawthorn’s communictions director,  emailed the Daily Planet the following statement on July 26:

“Rep. Cawthorn is honored to have the support of so many Americans nationwide. When Congressman Cawthorn was elected, he promised to be a loud voice for a new generation of young American conservatives. Rep. Cawthorn is always looking for new and unique ways to speak with as many young men and women as possible, in order to motivate them to speak out in defense of freedom.”

As for a story appearing elsewhere recently, in which Cawthorn accused Dr. Tony Fauci,who serves as the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to the president, “a pawn of Chinese Communist Party,” Bok also on July 26 released the following Cawthorn statement to the Daily Planet:

“U.S. Code sections 1621 and 1001 of Title 18 are the two relevant legal standards at play here. Section 1621 states that anyone who ‘willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true’ is guilty of perjury and shall be fined or imprisoned up to five years, or both.

"Section 1001 stipulates that ‘whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the government of the United States, knowingly and willfully’ falsifies or conceals information, including before a congressional committee’s inquiry, may also be fined or imprisoned up to five years.’

"Dr. Fauci stated, under oath, that no ‘gain of function research’ was funded at the Wuhan lab. However, Richard Ebright, a chemistry and chemical biology professor at Rutgers University, states that the experimentation conducted at the Wuhan lab ‘epitomizes’ gain-of-function research. The Wuhan lab used NIH funding to construct novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses able to infect human cells and laboratory animals. This is high-risk research that creates new potential pandemic pathogens [i.e., potential pandemic pathogens that exist only in a lab, not in nature].

"This research matches — indeed epitomizes — the definition of ‘gain of function research of concern’ for which federal funding was “paused” in 2014-2017.’ Dr. Fauci broke his oath. Not only his oath in Congress, but his Hippocratic oath as a doctor, to do no harm. I stand by my statements, and justice will be served.”