Before his trial, Capitol rioter Couy Griffin talked of plans to ride a horse from the federal courthouse. He left the building under slightly less grandiose conditions on Tuesday: convicted on one count, and driving a horse trailer that has become embroiled in a separate criminal case in his home state of New Mexico.
Griffin is the founder of the group “Cowboys For Trump,” and a county commissioner in Otero County, New Mexico. He’s also the second person to stand trial in a Capitol riot case. Griffin’s Tuesday conviction, handed down by Judge Trevor McFadden, found him guilty of entering a restricted area on Jan. 6, and not guilty of disorderly conduct.
The ruling comes at a moment of legal peril for Griffin. Last week, he was charged in a misdemeanor campaign finance case for allegedly failing to register “Cowboys for Trump” as a political committee. That same week, the House Oversight Committee announced an official investigation into a dubious election “audit” that Griffin has spearheaded as an Otero County commissioner.
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Griffin did not return a request for comment.
Griffin’s case was a potential bellwether for future Capitol riot prosecutions. The Otero County commissioner was not accused of entering the building—only trespassing on its grounds. Griffin is facing similar charges and has claimed they were unaware they were not allowed to enter the property’s restricted outer zones. Prosecutors challenged those claims, noting that Griffin had to scramble over walls, barricades, and at one point some construction scaffolding to reach the restricted area, and that, in a video from the riot, Griffin appeared to describe a police officer telling him not to enter the area.
Griffin argued that a toppled police barricade, which he was photographed climbing, was actually “a metal step […] You can call it a barricade. I call it a step,” he said on Monday.
McFadden, a Trump appointee, sided with prosecutors on the charge of illegally entering a restricted area. However, he acquitted Griffin on another count of disorderly conduct, ruling that Griffin’s actions did not rise to the level of illegal conduct, and that an address Griffin made via a bullhorn was a prayer and not inflammatory.
Though it involved relatively minor charges, Griffin’s case attracted national attention for its implications in New Mexico, where Griffin is an elected official.
Even before Donald Trump’s election loss, Griffin was facing criminal charges in the state for failing to register Cowboys For Trump as a political action group. The registration, mandatory for groups aimed at promoting a political candidate, would require Griffin to disclose CFT’s fundraising and spending. In 2020, he unsuccessfully sued New Mexico’s secretary of state, who told him to register the committee.
“The reason why I don’t want it to be a [tax-exempt] (c)(3) is I don’t want to be censored,” Griffin told the Santa Fe New Mexican that year. “You have to account for money, what you take in and what you spend, and there are guidelines on what you can say in those (c)(3)s.”
A search warrant filed last year alleged that CFT had raised more than $30,000 that went to Griffin in the form of a “direct donation.” During a previous court case, Griffin was found to have paid a child support check from CFT’s coffers—a move he defended because the group was a private company.
On Friday, Griffin was charged with a misdemeanor campaign finance violation for allegedly failing to register the group. Griffin has asserted his innocence in that case, telling the Associated Press that he plans to challenge the charge with help from conspiracy-promoting lawyer Sidney Powell.
Part of Griffin’s CFT work involves driving a horse trailer around the country to promote the former president. Griffin told NBC News he hoped to ride a horse to and from his federal trial this week, but he ultimately decided against it, instead parking his CFT trailer on a street near the courthouse.
Griffin’s trailer has previously come under legal scrutiny, after he drove it cross-country for Trump events on Otero County’s dime. He later repaid the travel expenses, after a probe from New Mexico’s state auditor.
Griffin is scheduled to be sentenced for his Capitol riot case on June 17. But the court date might not be his last appearance in a federal investigation.
As an Otero County commissioner, Griffin is a leading advocate of his county’s “audit” of the 2020 presidential election. The audit, one of several Republican-led efforts to cast doubt on Trump’s election loss, is being carried out by a company whose CEO has promoted election fraud conspiracy theories, and a Telegram-based group whose leader has described a desire for “firing squads” for people found to have committed election fraud. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform announced an investigation into the Otero County audit last week. As part of the investigation, the committee requested communications between Griffin and the company leading the audit.
New Mexico’s state auditor also released a letter last week highlighting concerns with the audit and the contract that Griffin and Otero County’s two other commissioners awarded the controversial audit company.
Separately on Monday, the ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a lawsuit to remove Griffin from office. The suit cited Griffin’s involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, as well as Griffin’s past statement that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”
The suit also cited a Jan. 7 video in which Griffin stated that “Yesterday was an historic and a great day for America. Because we will not lose, and Joe Biden will never be president. Kamala Harris will never be president, and the liberals will never take over Washington D.C. China will never take over Washington D.C. Because we will lead a charge in there that, you thought yesterday was a big day, it’ll be nothing like compared to the next one.”
Later in the video, Griffin stated that “you want to say that that was a mob? You want to say that was violence? No sir. No ma’am. No, we could have a Second Amendment rally on those same steps that we had that rally yesterday. You know, and if we do, then it’s gonna be a sad day, because there’s gonna be blood running out of that building. But at the end of the day, you mark my word, we will plant our flag on the desk of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Donald J. Trump if it boils down to it. You’re messing with the American people, and we’re a different animal,” he said. “You know, you see these uprisings and stuff going on in these eastern European countries like Chechnya and Serbia and those countries, but by God, whenever you see it also shaking loose in America, you’re gonna see a whole ‘nother revolution, because we still have our Second Amendment and [inaudible] and we will embrace it; we will hang onto it. We’re networked; we’re connected; we all have the same heart, and losing is not an option.”
Despite his legal woes, Griffin has remained a well-connected figure in state and local politics, with state-level Republican candidates posing for photographs with him or voicing support for his county’s audit.
Delaney Corcoran, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of New Mexico, said Griffin’s staying power in the GOP is evidence of the party’s shift to extremes.
“Couy Griffin is a strategic political operative who embodies the extremist views and radical agenda that have become mainstream for the New Mexico GOP,” Corcoran told The Daily Beast.
“When you look at Couy’s actions at the state and federal level and the strong support for Couy and the audit from the New Mexico Republican Party, including every single one of the Republican candidates for governor in New Mexico—it’s clear that Couy and the GOP are united in their misinformation and intimidation campaign against the people of New Mexico.”
