Georgia congressional candidate campaigns as pro-Trump, but past social media tells different tale

A Republican candidate for Georgia's 11th congressional district who has recently painted himself as a “pro-Trump” conservative has advanced to a runoff election to become the party’s nominee. 

However, the candidate, Dr. John Cowan, a neurosurgeon, has previously denounced President Donald Trump, criticized him and his influence over the party repeatedly and donated to one of the president's most prominent Republican critics, the candidate's apparent social media posts and public interviews show. 

Just the News previously reported that Cowan, who is running to replace the retiring Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., who led an investigation of the House Jan. 6 Committee, ironically has an apparent social media history of criticizing President Donald Trump over the incident. 

Cowan advanced to a runoff election in the primary against Loudermilk’s former chief of staff, Rob Adkerson, who is endorsed by Loudermilk. The primary election was held on May 19, with Cowan securing 42.6% of the vote to Adkerson’s 21.7%. Because no candidate received more than 50%, both will advance to the runoff election scheduled for June 16. 

Republicans were “making an idol” of Trump

Cowan’s campaign website makes no mention of the president, but his official social media accounts have touted his support for Trump. “Strong leadership matters, and President Trump continues to show the world what it means to fight for the United States of America,” his campaign posted to Instagram earlier this month with a graphic depicting Cowan and the president. 

But, just five years earlier, Cowan told reporters that he was concerned about how Republicans were “making an idol” of him. 

“Until we had President Trump, I never really saw the conservative movement making an idol out of the party leader, where it was a fealty more than a loyalty,” Cowan told USA Today in April 2021, in the aftermath of Jan. 6. 

In several posts on Cowan’s now-deleted personal social media account on X he referred to the Jan. 6 incident as “Trump’s Rebellion” and later suggested that Trump drop the 2020 election fraud narrative, saying he sounded like a “drunk uncle.”

Cowan appears to have not spoken publicly about the deleted X account, “@JC4Constitution.” However, when CNN’s New Day interviewed him in 2021, the segment aired photographs posted to Cowan’s X account. The account name on X, then called Twitter, matches the source of the now-deleted tweets, “@JC4Constitution.” 

Supported former Rep. Adam Kinzinger

More deleted posts from the account show that Cowan continued to criticize Trump until at least 2022, when the personal X account was last archived. “Not a serious Presidential candidate,” Cowan posted in December 2022, referring to a post announcing Trump’s launch of the Donald Trump Digital Trading Cards. 

Last month, Breitbart News reported that Cowan had financially supported the political efforts of former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., a prominent anti-Trump Republican who served on the House Jan. 6 Committee. Cowan gave $2,500 in March 2021 to the Future First Leadership PAC, which Kinzinger controls.

In November 2022, Cowan appeared to respond to one of Kinzinger social media posts by saying the congressman’s committee “should’ve had more Democrats testify against Trump!” 

Cowan’s runoff opponent and others have posted purported screenshots of deleted posts from Cowan’s personal X account. 

On Thursday, Adkerson posted an image of a tweet in which Cowan said that the “GOP cannot consider itself the home of the conservative movement with Trump in any form of leadership role.” 

“This is a gem. My runoff opponent believes [Trump] should not be in ‘any form of leadership role’ yet now he’s spending millions to lie to voters about being Pro-Trump,” Adkerson said. 

The Cowan campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News. 

Cowan was confronted at a primary debate about his past statements against President Trump and appeared to acknowledge that he had made such critical comments in the past. 

Cowan: "If that means speaking my mind at times, I will"

“Listen, I think these are typical political gotcha-type questions,” Cowan said at the debate. “I want to form a more perfect union. I want to form a more perfect Republican Party and a better country. And, if that means speaking my mind at times, I will,” he added.  

While many Republicans criticized Trump over Jan. 6, Cowan’s past comments make his bid to succeed Loudermilk somewhat ironic. The Georgia Republican was the subject of intense scrutiny from the House Jan. 6 Committee over a tour he gave to constituents one day ahead of the event. He later led a panel that investigated the Committee itself and found a number of alleged improprieties in its operations.

Much of Loudermilk’s investigation centered on security shortcomings and failures of the Capitol Police to properly secure the building ahead of time. In February of this year, he told Just the News he suspected that Democrats had misused the organization’s intelligence against Republicans.

“There are others who have spoken to us about efforts within the political element of Congress, within the Democrat Party, who were actively seeking access to the Capitol Police database and their intelligence, and they were using that intelligence against sitting members of Congress,” he said at the time.

He further said that “[t]here may be some evidence out there that this [FBI investigation] extended all the way into Congress, that there was investigation and political weaponization against members of Congress that may even have ties with the Select Committee on January 6.”