and the media must be making this up too. . .
A judge has ordered that a county official in
New Mexico is “barred for life” and “constitutionally ineligible” to hold public office after he was convicted for his role in the attack on the US Capitol.
Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin – a founder of “Cowboys for Trump” – will be removed from office, effective immediately, according to the court’s order on 6 September.
Griffin was
convicted on misdemeanor charges for his role in the Capitol riots on 6 January, 2021, and he recently refused to certify local election results, relying on debunked conspiracy theories about voting machines, fuelled by spurious legal challenges and false narratives from
Donald Trump and his allies.
District Court Judge Francis J Mathew determined that Griffin is disqualified from office under Section 4 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, holding that any person who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort” to insurrectionists is disqualified from holding public office.
The judge’s order – the first in more than 100 years that a court has disqualified a public official from holding office – followed a lawsuit filed by a group of New Mexico residents.
Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which represented the plaintiffs, called the order a “historic win for accountability” in the wake of the attack.
“Protecting American democracy means ensuring those who violate their oaths to the Constitution are held responsible,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “This decision makes clear that any current or former public officials who took an oath to defend the US Constitution and then participated in the [6 January insurrection] can and will be removed and barred from government service for their actions.”
The judge noted the “irony” of Griffin’s attempts to defend his actions and urge the court against “applying the law” despite participating in an “insurrection” with a “mob whose goal, by his own admission, was to set aside the results of a free, fair and lawful election.”