Claims that he was armed inside the halls of the Capitol on Jan. 6 has Rep. Madison Cawthorn and rules surrounding weapons inside the Capitol facing scrutiny.
The Republican freshman congressman representing Madison, Buncombe and 17 other Western North Carolina counties described his evacuation from the House floor as “the closest I’ve ever been to 9/11” in an interview with the Smoky Mountain News Jan. 7. “Fortunately, I was armed, so we would have been able to protect ourselves,” Cawthorn said.