Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin has been removed from his position as Otero County, New Mexico, commissioner over his involvement in the January 6 riots.
A New Mexico judge has removed Cowboys for Trump founder and January 6 rioter Couy Griffin from his elected office as county commissioner for his role in the attempted attack on the U.S. Capitol building.
According to CNN, Griffin had faced a lawsuit alleging that he had violated provisions of the 14th Amendment by participating in an “insurrection” against the federal government.
Griffin had earlier been convicted of trespassing.
CNN reports that the ruling marks the first time an elected official has ever been removed from office for participation in the Capitol riots. It is also the first time that a judge has formally found that the riots constituted an “insurrection.”
The ruling will prevent Griffin, one of three county commissioners in Otero County, New Mexico, from holding any state or federal elected position in the future.
“The irony of Mr. Griffin’s argument that this Court should refrain from applying the law and consider the will of the people in District Two of Otero County who retained him as a county commissioner against a recall effort as he attempts to defend his participation in an insurrection by a mob whose goal, by his own admission, was to set aside the results of a free, fair and lawful election by a majority of the people of the entire country (the will of the people) has not escaped this Court,” Mathew wrote in his ruling.
Griffin, characterized by CNN as “an ardent conspiracy theorist,” had earlier refused to certify the state’s primary results in Otero County.
He has since been ordered to clean out and vacate his office.
Griffin has protested the ruling, deeming the judge “tyrannical.”
“I’m shocked. Just shocked,” Griffin told CNN. “I really did not feel like the state was going to move on me in such a way. I don’t know where I go from here.”
In his ruling, Matthew said that Griffin’s prior attempts to “sanitize his actions are without merit,” and “amounted to nothing more than attempting to put lipstick on a pig.”
Griffin and his organization, Cowboys for Trump, had spent “months normalizing the violence that may be necessary to keep President Trump in office,” having urged supporters to travel to Washington, D.C., on January 6.
He had also made repeated, incendiary comments suggesting that the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement was effectively a “war” to keep Trump in office.
Griffin, adds CNN, was found guilty of trespassing on federal property earlier this year. He was sentenced to spend 14 days behind bars with time served, as well as one year of supervised release.
Sources
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