Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse


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Before January 6, 25-year-old Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) was known for being the youngest member of Congress, an ardent Trump supporter, and one of the few wheelchair users in elected office. Now he is in the headlines for giving a speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally prior to the insurrection at the Capitol that left five people dead. Throughout his short but meteoric political career, Cawthorn has used his disability to tell a story of overcoming: Despite great adversity, he claims to have achieved excellence through grit and physical strength. Many of his campaign ads featured images of Cawthorn intubated and hospitalized alongside videos of him lifting weights and hurtling forward in a racing wheelchair. But his claims of sporting success—like his accounts of education and business acumen—have often been misleading.

Cawthorn became disabled after a 2014 car crash left him paralyzed from the waist down. By Cawthorn’s own telling, he was a successful business owner headed to the Naval Academy before his injury tragically reordered his life. As it turns out, neither claim is true. The Asheville Watchdog reported that Cawthorn had already been rejected from the Naval Academy before his accident. And Cawthorn’s real-estate investment firm, SPQR Holdings LLC, which he only formed in August 2019, reported no income on its tax documents, and Cawthorn was the sole employee.

But he has not only styled himself as Naval Academy material with a head for real estate. Multiple outlets reported that before he ran for office, Cawthorn was training for the 2020 Paralympic Games. There is little detail, but according to Micah Bock, Cawthorn’s campaign communications director, he intended to compete in the 400-meter dash at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo. It would have been an incredible footnote in a politician’s biography: Paralympians are celebrated and accomplished athletes. But his hopes for the Paralympic Games, now slated for summer 2021, were allegedly dashed by his worsening disability.
 

View: https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1352621809456336901?s=20


When federal agents asked Houston police Officer Tam Dinh Pham why he was in Washington during the pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month, he said he had traveled there on business and then attended the president’s rally on a whim. But most importantly, Pham told the agents, he did not go inside the Capitol during the attempted insurrection.

That’s when an FBI agent showed him his own deleted images and videos from inside the Rotunda on Jan. 6, according to court documents.
Faced with the photo evidence, Pham then allegedly admitted to climbing over torn-down fences to get inside. But still, he insisted his reasons were benign: He just wanted the rare opportunity to view “historical art,” investigators said.

Pham, 48, was arrested on Wednesday on charges of unlawful entry of the Capitol and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. He is one of more than a dozenhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/police-trump-capitol-mob/2021/01/16/160ace1e-567d-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_7 (off-duty police officers) under investigation for allegedly participating in the violent and chaotic insurrection earlier this month.
 
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