New Mexico official charged with assault on Capitol

WASHINGTON (AP) — An elected New Mexico official will appear on Monday before a judge who will decide whether he is guilty of charges of illegally breaking into Capitol grounds during the assault on the legislative palace on January 6 last year.

The case of Couy Griffin, Otero County Commissioner, will be just the second of hundreds of people charged with federal charges for the assault on the Capitol. His trial will be in Washington, D.C.

Griffin is one of the few defendants who is not accused of entering the Capitol or engaging in violent or destructive behavior. He maintains that he is the victim of political persecution.

Griffin, one of three members of the Otero County Commission in southern New Mexico, is one of the few defendants in the insurrection who held public office or was a candidate in two and a half years prior to the assault.

He is one of only three defendants who have asked that a judge rather than a jury decide their future. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden plans to hear a day of testimony.

Griffin, formerly a rodeo cowboy and pastor, helped found a group called “Cowboys for Trump”. He had promised to go to court on horseback, but he arrived in a truck that had a horse cabin behind him.

In court documents, the prosecution calls him an “arsonist and fabulist provocateur who uses racist invective and conspiracy theories, such as the one that communist China manipulated the results of the 2020 presidential elections.”

His lawyers, David Smith and Nicholas Smith, argue that hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, did exactly what Griffin did on January 6 and have not been charged with anything.

“The evidence will show that the government is persecuting Griffin for having given a speech and for offering a prayer at the Capitol, that is, they are persecuting him for exercising his right to free expression,” the lawyers wrote.

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Jacques Billeaud contributed from Phoenix.