“Congressman Madison Cawthorn has just told me (he) has NOT withdrawn his claims of drug-fueled orgies among the DC elite,” said a former adviser to Donald Trump in a post on the right-wing social networking site Gab. “Why believe Kevin McCarthy’s statement or anything on CNN? “McCarthy is a corrupt RINO and CNN is lying about everything.” A screenshot of the post was shared by lawyer Ron Filipkowski. Mr Stone’s allegation came hours after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ousted the North Carolina lawmaker because he claimed in an interview that “sexual perversion” was out of control in Congress. Mr McCarthy and the whip of the minority Steve Scalise met with Mr Cawthorn for a short time and then the House minority leader told reporters that the first-year MP had “lost” his confidence. “She has lost my confidence, I have to win her back. “And I exposed everything I thought was inappropriate,” McCarthy told reporters, according to Axios, before noting that the 26-year-old North Carolina Republican had changed his story when confronted. He said Mr Cawthorn had told him he “thought he might have seen an employee in a car park maybe 100 meters away” and that the MP “did not know what cocaine was”. Earlier in the interview, which went viral, Mr Cawthorn claimed to have witnessed drug use by lawmakers or political leaders whom he suggested were spearheading the country’s anti-addiction campaigns. “Some of the people who are leading the movement to try to eradicate addiction in our country and then watch them make a major cocaine strike right in front of you. “And it’s like, this is wild,” he said. He also claimed that members he had been “looking at” all his life had invited him to an “orgy” at a DC residence. His comments have angered the leadership of Republicans as well as those of the far-right Freedom Group. Mr McCarthy told reporters he could also face sanctions for his comments. Mr Cawthorn is the youngest member of Congress. He has a history of embracing conspiracy theories and has been accused of making statements with little or no basis in fact.
