A New Mexico judge Tuesday removed Couy Griffin, a participant in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and the founder of Cowboys for Trump, from his position as Otero County Commissioner. Judge Francis Mathew held that Griffin violated the Insurrection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by participating in the riot and is disqualified from holding state or federal office.

Griffin was convicted of disorderly conduct and entering the Capitol building without lawful authority. According to the FBI, Griffin “climbed up on the top of the Capitol building and . . . had a first row seat” to the insurrection. Plaintiffs sought to disqualify Griffin from running for state or federal office after his conviction. Griffin argued that the lawsuit violated his “First Amendment right to run for political office, his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, and the Amnesty Act of 1872.”

In response to Griffin’s arguments, Mathews wrote:

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.”