Allegations of sexual misconduct by Cawthorn, who at age 25 is the youngest member of Congress, have followed him since he launched his run for North Carolina's 11th Congressional District. Cawthorn has repeatedly denied wrong-doing since the allegations first surfaced, and his office pointed CNN to a September 2020 statement from the lawmaker in which he said, "I have never done anything sexually inappropriate in my life." The women alleging misconduct against the congressman are former classmates of his at Patrick Henry College in Virginia. Cawthorn attended the private Christian school for a short time in 2016 before dropping out, and it was during that time that the women say he made unwanted advances on them. "His MO was to take vulnerable women out on these rides with him in the car, and to make advances," Caitlin Coulter, one of Cawthorn's former classmates, told CNN in an interview.

Source: The Nation March 02, 2021 00:22 UTC