The judge declared that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was an “insurrection,” the first time any court has done so.
By Kevin Breuninger
National Politics Reporter
CNBC
A judge in New Mexico declared Tuesday that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was an “insurrection” as he ruled that Otero County Commissioner and “Cowboys for Trump” founder Couy Griffin must be removed from office for participating in the attack.
Griffin is barred for life from holding any federal or state office — including his current role as county commissioner, from which he will be ousted “effective immediately,” Judge Francis Mathew ruled.
Griffin became “constitutionally disqualified” from those positions as of Jan. 6, 2021, the judge concluded.
On that day, a violent mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, forcing lawmakers to flee their chambers and disrupting the transfer of power to President Joe Biden. Griffin was convicted in March on a misdemeanor charge of breaching restricted Capitol grounds.
The riot and the planning and incitement that led up to it “constituted an ‘insurrection’” under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Mathew wrote in the ruling in New Mexico’s 1st Judicial District Court.
The ruling marked the first time that any court found that the Capitol riot met the definition of an insurrection, according to the nonprofit government watchdog group CREW, which represented the plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit to disqualify Griffin.
“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,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said in a press release.
Griffin told CNN later Tuesday that he had been ordered to clean out his desk.
“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.”
Mathew’s ruling also marks the first time since 1869 that a court has disqualified a public official under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, according to CREW.