Rep. Madison Cawthorn's midterm re-election bid got a $1,000 donation from the cousin of a Russian oligarch who was sanctioned by the US, a new campaign filing showed late on Sunday.

Cawthorn's cash-strapped campaign received a boost on May 6 that included a check from New York-based private equity investor Andrew Intrater, according to the Federal Election Commission. 

Intrater has previously been accused of using his business as a front to launder money for his cousin Viktor Vekselberg, who was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2018 after Russian prosecutors raided his company offices 'for bribing officials connected to a power generation project in Russia.' Intrater had denied those claims.

Vekselberg was sanctioned again in March as a 'Kremlin insider' with close ties to Vladimir Putin's inner circle as part of a widening net of economic penalties in response to Russia's brutal and unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

And his cousin's donation to Cawthorn is latest in a lengthy string of scandals for the 26-year-old Republican congressman. The list also includes him calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a 'thug' less than two weeks after his country was first violently invaded by Moscow's military on February 24. 

A campaign filing made last week shows Cawthorn owing more money than he's got on hand with less than a month to go until his crowded eight-way primary race on May 17.

The Cawthorn for NC campaign committee ended last month with $137,598.90 on hand, while owing a debt of $324,566.02, the filing dated April 1 to April 27 reads. 

It's not clear if the North Carolina congressman and Intrater have ever met.

DailyMail.com has sent Cawthorn's office a request for comment. 

The Manhattan financier's donation listed his role as asset manager at private equity firm Sparrow Capital. 

The company's name is a rebranding of its previous label, Columbus Nov

/>A 2019 New York Times report details how Vekselberg's sanctions crippled Intrater's old venture, leading him to sue then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and the department he headed over allegedly violating Intrater's Fourth Amendment rights.

Vekselberg was the biggest investor in his cousin's firm, which was caught up in the billionaire's sanctions due to longstanding US policy to extend the penalties onto any company in which the sanctioned person or entity has at least a 50 percent share. 

Allegations that he served as a front for Vekselberg stem from leaked financial documents belonging to Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, though he was never formally accused of any such wrongdoing.

As for Intrater's billionaire Russian cousin, his superyacht named the Tango was seized by authorities in Spain last month in connection to the latest US sanctions. 

'Today marks our taskforce's first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regim

/>It will not be the last,' Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the time.

'Together, with our international partners, we will do everything possible to hold accountable any individual whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue its unjust war.'

The donation was first reported by Cawthorn's campaign is by far not Intrater's first or most generous contribution. He's given roughly a quarter of a million dollars to various Republican campaigns since 2017.

Intrater made out a $35,000 check to the Trump Victory PAC in June 2017. It was done through Renova US Management LLC, a company connected to his sanctioned cousin's firm The Renova Group.

Lawyer Michael Avenatti brought up the payment in 2018 when representing porn star Stormy Daniels in a case against Trump, claiming: 'Mr. Vekselberg and his cousin Mr. Andrew Intrater routed eight payments to Mr. Cohen through a company named Columbus Nova LLC.'

Intrater also donated $2,900 to Florida GOP Rep. Michael Waltz in January, and the same amount to Dr. Mehmet Oz's Pennsylvania Senate campaign the month prior.