US congressman Cawthorn not to face charges for remarks on orgies and drugs

US House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has said that his fellow Republican and congressman Madison Cawthorn will not face disciplinary action for his controversial comments about claiming to be invited by Washington colleagues to orgies and witnessing some leaders using cocaine.

Cawthorn, who has been described as a controversialist and Trump supporter, said on a podcast on Friday that he had witnessed "sexual perversion" and illegal drug use in Washington.

"I look at a lot of these people, a lot of them that I've looked up to through my life — I've always paid attention to politics— guys, that, then all of a sudden you get invited to, 'Oh, hey, we're going to have a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come," Cawthorn told Warrior Poet Society,"when asked about how realistic Netflix's "House of Cards" is compared to real life in Washington.

Many GOP colleagues were frustrated with Cawthorn’s “unfounded” claims and asked McCarthy to take action against the North Carolina's representative.

“He’s got to turn himself around,” McCarthy told reporters on Wednesday, addressing a meeting he had with Cawthorn that morning.

“I just told him he’s lost my trust, he’s gonna have to earn it back, and I laid out everything I find is unbecoming. And you can’t just say, ‘You can’t do this again.’ I mean, he’s got a lot of members very upset.”

Asked if Cawthorn, 26, could face penalties from the House Republican conference such as being removed from his committee posts, McCarthy said that there are “a lot of different things that could happen.”

McCarthy met Cawthorn with the Republican chief whip, Steve Scalise, in attendance.

According to the minority leader, Cawthorn admitted some of his remarks had been untrue or exaggerated.

“In the interview, he claims he watched people do cocaine. Then when he comes in, he says he thinks he saw maybe a staffer in a parking garage from 100 yards away.”

“It’s just frustrating. There’s no evidence behind his statements … I told him you can’t make statements like that, as a member of Congress, that affect everybody else and the country as a whole.”

The Republican leader mentioned a number of other recent statements and actions from Cawthorn that he found unbecoming of a member of Congress.

Earlier this month, Cawthorn called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug,” which McCarthy hadpreviously said was “wrong.”

(With inputs from agencies)