A New Mexico judge has ordered a Donald Trump-supporting county official to be immediately removed and barred from office for participating in the deadly Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
In his ruling on Tuesday, District Judge Francis Mathew said that Otero County Commissioner and “Cowboys for Trump” founder Couy Griffin is disqualified from holding office under the 14th Amendment because he engaged in the insurrection after taking an oath to support the Constitution as an “executive … officer” of the state.
Griffin’s “protestations and his characterizations of his actions and the events of January 6, 2021 are not credible and amounted to nothing more than attempting to put lipstick on a pig,” Mathew wrote.
Mathew cites several instances in which Griffin, while on a “Stop the Steal” bus tour, inflamed and mobilized Trump supporters across the country to join what he repeatedly called the “war” in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021. The ruling also included that Griffin brought firearms and ammunition with him on his way to the nation’s capital.
Griffin was filmed scaling the Capitol’s walls after seeing the mob of Trump supporters push past security barriers. Once he reached the inaugural stage, Griffin used a bullhorn to lead the group in prayer and give a speech promoting the attack.
“It’s a great day for America! The people [are] showing that they’ve had enough,” Griffin said to the mob, members of which were brutally attacking law enforcement in a nearby tunnel. “People are ready for fair and legal elections, or this is what you’re going to get, and you’re going to get more of it.”
In a video recorded the day after the insurrection, Griffin celebrated the violence that occurred at the Capitol and previewed further violence to try and stop Joe Biden from becoming president. He mentioned a potential “Second Amendment rally” during the inauguration that would include “blood running out of that building.”
The commissioner also told other Otero County officials at a meeting on Jan. 14, 2021, that he planned to take a rifle and a revolver when he returned to Washington. The move was part of a greater effort by Trump supporters to block the transfer of presidential power to Biden.
Griffin was arrested in Washington on Jan. 17, 2021, for his role in the insurrection. He was convicted in March of entering and remaining on restricted grounds, but acquitted of disorderly conduct. Griffin was sentenced to 14 days in jail and a $3,000 fine for his role in the insurrection.
Several law firms and the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a lawsuit earlier this year on behalf of a group of New Mexico residents seeking to remove Griffin from office. CREW President Noah Bookbinder said in a statement that the ruling is a “historic win for accountability” for the insurrection and those who were involved in it.
“This decision makes clear that any current or former public officials who took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and then participated in the January 6th insurrection can and will be removed and barred from government service for their actions,” Bookbinder said.
The ruling is the first time since 1869 that a judge has used the Constitution’s insurrection-related disqualification language to remove someone from office, according to CREW. It’s also the first time that any court has ruled the attack on the Capitol an insurrection.
“The mob was unified by the common public purpose of opposing the execution of federal law – namely, the Twelfth and Twentieth Amendments and the Electoral Count Act. Through their chants, flags, banners, and clothing, the mob made clear they came to the Capitol to stop Vice President [Mike] Pence and Congress from carrying out their constitutional duties to certify the election by force and intimidation,” the judge wrote. “That some of the January 6 attackers may have believed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen does not negate their insurrectionary purpose.”
“The mob ultimately achieved what even the Confederates never did during the Civil War: they breached the Capitol building and seized the Capitol grounds, forcing the Vice President and Congress to halt their constitutional duties and flee to more secure locations,” the judge continued. “Knowledgeable nineteenth-century Americans … would have regarded the events of January 6, and the surrounding planning, mobilization and incitement, as an insurrection.”