Chuck Edwards Is Out. We Told You He Would Be.

Yesterday we said resign. Today he quit his campaign. The seat is next.

Yesterday we said resign. This morning at 5 a.m., posted to Facebook while Western North Carolina was still asleep, Chuck Edwards quit his re-election campaign.

He says it was prayer and reflection. Sure it was. The House Ethics Committee dropped its report Monday finding substantial evidence that he made repeated unwanted advances toward two young female staffers, and recommended the full House censure him. That is one step short of expulsion. By Tuesday, per CNN, his own party’s leadership was working the phones to shove him out. By Wednesday he was gone. That is not prayer. That is math.

I have spent this week inside the document production his own office handed the Ethics Committee. Nearly a thousand pages of his texts. His words, not mine. We published them yesterday, and if you missed that piece, go read it, because the man told on himself better than we ever could.

He offered, in writing, to skip House votes to decorate a staffer’s Christmas tree. He cancelled a constituent tele-town hall for a dinner date. He booked the Bellagio and coached secrecy around a Vegas trip. Thirty tubs of ice cream to a staffer’s home. A casino night printout with a hand-drawn heart on it. A comment about a staffer’s dress at a FEMA meeting, while Helene survivors in these mountains were still waiting on their congressman.

His lawyers wrote 15 pages calling the findings unfounded. His campaign spokesman said the report was a complete exoneration. Forty-eight hours later the fully exonerated congressman quit a race he won in May.

Read that again. You do not quit a race you already won because you were exonerated.

Here is the part nobody in Washington will say out loud: this happened because somebody kept the file. The Ethics Committee did its job, and so did we. No cable hits, no viral moments, just documents that do not blink. His own texts, produced under compulsion, ended his career. All we did was make sure the people of NC-11 could read them.

And the district? NC-11 just blew wide open. Edwards won the primary in May, which means voters do not pick his replacement. Party insiders do, in a back room, in August. Whoever walks out of that room starts from zero against Jamie Ager, who has been on the ground for months in a district that was already sliding toward competitive. I wrote in this newsletter weeks ago that NC-11 was the race to watch. Now the whole country will be watching it.

So what happens next. Three things.

Edwards should still resign. He says he will finish his term, which means the guy who offered in writing to skip our votes keeps casting them until January. The censure vote is still coming when the House returns in September. He should spare the district the spectacle of standing in the well while it gets read to him. Our demand from yesterday has not moved.

We will be in the room for the replacement fight, or as close to the door as they let us get. The NC-11 GOP protected this man for months. If they think they can quietly swap in a successor without anyone checking the new guy’s record, they have not been paying attention to how we work.

And Lauren Boebert is next. Garfield County, August 13. Weld County, September 4. Two ethics complaints pending. Four years of file. More on that in the next piece.

Edwards wrote this morning that serving Western North Carolina has been the greatest honor of his professional life. Serving Western North Carolina was the job, Chuck. The texts show where your attention actually was. These mountains deserved a full-time congressman. In November, they can finally elect one.

Read the whole story here.

Big D

David B. Wheeler President, American Muckrakers

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About the Author

David B. Wheeler is the president and co-founder of American Muckrakers, the Western North Carolina accountability organization best known for helping end Madison Cawthorn’s congressional career in 2022, the rare instance in modern politics of a sitting incumbent losing his own primary because somebody bothered to do the homework. Since then, American Muckrakers has turned its attention to Lauren Boebert, Ken Paxton, and a growing roster of politicians who confuse public office with a personal ATM. He publishes accountability journalism at Muckrakers.Today.

Wheeler co-hosts the MUCK YOU! podcast with Col. Moe Davis, the retired Air Force colonel and former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay. He is the author of Color the Crooks, Case File #001: Lauren Boebert, the coloring book James Carville endorsed with the words “She earned every damn page. Buy it.” *He is also the founder of VoteROI.com, a political data company built on 86.9 million FEC records that helps donors figure out where their money actually goes, which, as this essay makes clear, is a question more people should be asking.

Before all that, Wheeler spent three decades in politics, elections, and event production in more than 50 countries on all seven continents. Along the way he lowered the Mississippi River, produced the first professional sports event ever held in Moscow, and produced the first marathon ever run on Antarctica. His political education started early: Page for the Iowa House of Representatives, intern in the United States Senate, and National Committeeman for Iowa on the Young Democrats of America national committee. David was the lead advance guy for then Senator Obama in Iowa City, Iowa, in October of 2006, and then again during his presidential announcement in Waterloo, Iowa, in February 2007. And, he has some good stories from both experiences.

An Iowa native and proud Hawkeye, Wheeler is a father of three and lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina, in the district Chuck Edwards is currently failing. He believes sunlight is the best disinfectant, filings don’t lie, and the loudest guy in the room is usually the one with the most to hide.

And, Beetlejuice Boebert claimed she was going to sue him. She never did, so David sued her in Federal Court in Denver and partially won.

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This publication is First Amendment protected speech and commentary on matters of public concern. All individuals referenced are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. No portion of this publication may be used for commercial purposes without the written consent of American Muckrakers PAC, Inc. and David B. Wheeler.

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