The ruling is the first time an elected official has been removed from office as a result of their participation in or support for the January 6, 2021 uprising. It is also the first time a judge has officially ruled that the events of January 6 were a “rebellion.” Griffin, one of three commissioners in Otero County, is also barred from holding any state or federal elected office in the future, state Judge Francis Matthews ruled Tuesday. “The irony of Mr. Griffin’s argument that this Court should sit back from applying the law and consider the will of the people in Otero County District Two who kept him as county commissioner against a recall effort as he tries to defend the his participation in The insurrection by a mob whose object, he confessed, was to set aside the results of a free, fair and legal election by the majority of the people of the entire country (the will of the people) has not escaped this Court”. Matthew wrote. Griffin, an ardent conspiracy theorist who refused to certify the results of this summer’s state primary election in Otero County, told CNN he was ordered to clean out his office and attacked the judge as “tyrannical.”
“I’m shocked. I’m just shocked,” Griffin said. “I really didn’t feel like the state was going to move against me like that. I don’t know where I go from here.” The order barring Griffin from holding office was released by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Matthew wrote that Griffin’s attempts to “sanitize his actions are baseless” and “amount to no more than trying to put lipstick on a pig.” Griffin and his Cowboys for Trump organization spent “months normalizing the violence that may be necessary to keep President Trump in office” and urging supporters to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, Matthews wrote, including several inflammatory public speeches. in which he likened the Stop the Steal movement to a “war” to keep Trump in office.
In June, a D.C. federal judge sentenced Griffin to 14 days behind bars, with time served and a year of supervised release, after pleading guilty to trespassing at the Capitol during the riot. This story has been updated with additional details. CNN’s Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.