North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn could find himself embroiled in yet another scandal as some experts weigh if the Republican committed insider trading violations.
On Dec. 29th, Rep. Cawthorn was at a party with James Koutoulas, a hedge fund manager and the ringleader of the Let’s Go Brandon cryptocurrency, a meme coin set up in the wake of the chant mocking President.
The Washington Examiner reports:
“LGB legends. … Tomorrow we go to the moon!” Cawthorn, who has stated publicly he owns the cryptocurrency, posted on Instagram in response to the picture posted on Koutoulas’s Instagram page.
The next day the cryptocurrency value spiked.
On Dec. 30th NASCAR driver Brandon Brown announced the meme coin would be the primary sponsor of his 2022 season, causing LGBCoin’s value to spike by 75%. Brown’s statement featured comments from Koutoulas, who was pictured with Cawthorn just a few hours prior.
Multiple watchdog groups told the Washington Examiner that Cawthorn’s Dec. 29 Instagram post suggests the lawmaker may have had advanced nonpublic knowledge of LGBCoin’s deal with Brown. The watchdogs said the post, combined with Cawthorn’s statement that he owns LGBCoin, warrants an investigation from the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine whether the lawmaker violated federal insider trading laws.
“This looks really, really bad,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the government affairs manager for Project on Government Oversight, a federal watchdog group. “This does look like a classic case of you got some insider information and acting on that information. And that’s illegal.”
“I think there’s probably a strong case here,” Hedtler-Gaudette added. “I don’t want to prejudge, but based on everything that’s out there, I think there is a very strong possibility that if someone is going to investigate this, they’re going to find something.”
If Cawthorn purchased LGBCoin before Dec. 30th with nonpublic knowledge of the cryptocurrency’s pending deal with Brown, that would constitute insider trading, a federal crime that can involve prison time.
