The House Committee on Ethics penalized Madison Cawthorn, an outgoing member of the US House of Representatives, more than $15,000 for endorsing a cryptocurrency in which he had an unreported investment.
A committee inquiry found that Cawthorn violated federal law and House ethics standards by failing to disclose his ownership of the token known as “LGB Coin” before he lost the Republican primary for his seat. After a probe was launched, Cawthorn filed the necessary disclosures for his holdings but did not advertise the purchase of the token publicly. He had bought the coins for $150,000.
The phrase “Let’s Go Brandon”—a joking rallying cry for President Joe Biden’s detractors—is referenced in the token’s name.
180 billion LGB Coin, with an average market worth of about $164,200 at the time, resulted from the $150,000 Cawthorn paid to an anonymous person engaged with the token. Additionally, Cawthorn did not pay transaction costs.
Cawthorn bought the tokens on December 21, 2021, and sold “almost all” of them in three batches, making a total loss of close to $7,500 by the end of January 2022.
Even though he broke gift laws by accepting a discount on the previously unreported purchase, the North Carolina Republican looks to have lost nearly all of his investment in addition to the “admonishment” from the House Ethics Committee.
Although the committee report on the probe says the value of his remaining LGB Coin was much less at the time the Report was adopted, and it is unclear how Representative Cawthorn obtained his estimation of the value, Cawthorn valued his current token holdings at $357.52. He reported possessing 15,378,707,329 LGB Coin as of November 19.
The committee mandated Cawthorn to make a charitable donation of about $14,237.49 in addition to paying a $1,000 late disclosure fine to the Department of Justice.
The committee claimed to have investigated possible fraud and insider trading around the matter but had not discovered enough proof. The Ethics panel, however, stated that the soon-to-be-former congressman who behaved in a manner that did not reflect creditably upon the House in breach of House behavior standards should receive an admonition due to its investigation.
After serving one year in the 11th Congressional District of North Carolina, the Representative will step down in January 2023 after losing to North Carolina Senator Chuck Edwards in the Republican party primary in May.
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