A federal judge removed a New Mexico county commissioner for violating his oath of office by participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Couy Griffin, who had been elected as Otero County Commission chairman, was convicted this year of trespassing on the Capitol grounds, and a federal lawsuit was filed against him alleging that he violated the Constitution by participating in an “insurrection” against the government.
U.S. District Court Judge Francis Mathew’s ruling also bars Griffin from holding state or federal office 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,” the judge wrote.
Griffin spent the months between the election and storming the Capitol holding rallies with Cowboys for Trump and encouraging election deniers and fomenting conspiracy theories, Mathew added as part of the decision.
“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,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington President Noah Bookbinder said in a news release.
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