Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. He is a pastor, a Republican and the son of a former commissioner in Catron County, New Mexico. Yeah.Officer: So if you want to waste our time here.. After the officer hands him the ticket, Griffin still gets in a parting shot. Otero County Commission Chairman and Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin rides his horse on 5th avenue on May 1, 2020 in New York City. I have done my best to shield and protect anyone who has supported me from the same attacks that I daily come under. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos. Wearing a Cowboys for Trump shirt, and sitting in the office he shares with the heads of a deer and an elk, Griffin discussed the roots of his brand of populist politics. For years, Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin has been Donald Trump's most flamboyant supporter in New Mexico, creating spectacles and controversy in equal measure. "I was raised in the shadow of a great man," he said. Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said dozens of people have complained about volunteers associated with the audit going door-to-door and asking residents about their vote. Republican primary candidates embracing Trumps stolen election rhetoric have flourished this year. By MORGAN LEE February 28, 2023. As per the sources, He was married to him for a long time and got divorced in 2019. "I wanted to go from just being a voice to having a vote.". He appeared first in Torrance County, where he led off comments at a raucous meeting. A New Mexico state judge on Thursday ordered convicted Capitol rioter Couy Griffin to be removed from his county commissioner seat, ruling that the Cowboys for Trump founder's involvement in the . Thats something the media is not telling us right now, not showing us but its going to come out. For years, Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin has been Donald Trump's most flamboyant supporter in New Mexico, creating spectacles and controversy in equal measure. Griffin: You know the drugs right now are horrible, the property crime is horrible, and theres two of you guys riding around citing people for no seatbelts?Officer: So, wed probably be doing the drug stuff if you were wearing your seatbelt.Griffin: Oh, really? He sees himself as governor one day. Officer: Hello, sir.Griffin: How you doing? "There's no absolutely no reason for this," she said. Couy Griffin, of New Mexico, was arrested today in Washington, D.C., and charged by criminal complaint with one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful entry. The role of creativity in resilience and community-building, Alamogordo Proud Downtown Nights Otero Arts Exhibition Opening, Late Shopping and More, Downtown stores open till 8 pm Friday student art exhibition and more, Alamogordo Proud It is All About the Fashion Spotlight Alamogordo Artisan Linda Swenson, Alamogordo Proud is All about the fashions of Alamogordo's Linda Swenson, AlamogordoTownNews.com Tularosa High School Students Excel in Competitions, AlamogordoTownNews.com Not Guilty! Clements is one among a tightknit circle of Trump supporters who travel the country as self-appointed election fraud evangelists. The Cowboys for Trump website was not operational Feb. 13. Griffin lists himself as manager of Cowboys for Trump. 1 talking about this. David Clements urged commissioners not to perform their statutory duty to certify the results, arguing that doing so would place them in legal jeopardy because of the problems they alleged with the machines. Griffin, the only dissenter, called his vote in from Washington, where he had just been sentenced to 14 days in jail time served for his role in the Capitol attack. In Sandoval County, Clements had so riled residents that the commissioners had to be removed from the hearing room by sheriffs deputies for their safety after voting 4-1 to approve the results, according to County Commissioner Katherine Bruch, a Democrat. The first-term county commissioner forged a group of rodeo acquaintances in 2019 into a promotional Cowboys for Trump posse to spread his conservative message about gun rights, immigration controls and abortion restrictions. And yet he remains determined. "And he kind of laughed and said no. Ive had my own family say some pretty nasty things, Griffin said. The New Mexico Supreme Court denied an appeal from former Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin in the case that removed him from office based on his actions during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. Couy Griffin was wanted on an arrest warrant after storming the barricades of the Capitol Jan. 6, said authorities. Id see other happy families on vacation while I would bus their tables as an underage kid and say, is this it, Lord? , But, he said he realized, God was preparing me for something, to see artifice, to see lies.. Griffin said he never entered the Capitol building. "On the afternoon of January 17, 2021, the U.S. Capitol Police notified the FBI that they had detained Couy Griffin of New Mexico, who was the subject of an arrest warrant for his role in the . Griffin has acknowledged using the county building for promotional videos but said he never claimed they were affiliated with Otero County. Griffin's term as county commissioner is up this year, and he has said he will not run again. "Never have. A rancher named Dave Wright raised his hand to say that it was obvious to him the Democratic National Committee had figured out how to cheat, so why couldnt the Republicans do so as well? The ruling comes after lawyers for Griffin's ex-wife, Kourtnie, filed an emergency motion in May to modify their custody and visitation agreement. Officer: Im going to issue a citation for the seatbelt. Sicknick, a Capitol police. But luck may have run out for this cowboy pastor who rode to national political fame by embracing President Donald Trump with a series of horseback caravans and came crashing down with a defiant stand Jan. 6 against President Joe Bidens election. Trump won there in 2020 with 73% of the vote. I am already bracing for a media frenzy during this time because there is so much on the line. They embrace the instructions of leaders like former Trump adviser turned podcaster Stephen K. Bannon, who has urged election deniers to run for local races and sign up to be poll workers in what he calls his precinct-by-precinct takeover strategy. The error was quickly corrected, but the damage was done. Were in a contest of wills. (Those findings were comprehensively rejected by the Maricopa County Elections Department.). Griffin, who was once thanked by Trump for saying The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat and who was convicted of a misdemeanor for entering a restricted area during the Capitol riot, has long alleged the 2020 presidential election was stolen. EXCLUSIVE: Blake Griffin and Ryan Kalil are getting into business with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin confronted a trial by jury on Tuesday on charges that he failed to register a political organisation without filing related public financial disclosures. It singled out fraudulent audits in Maricopa County, Ariz., and Otero County as key drivers in an effort by malicious domestic actors to erode trust in American democracy. Brittany Costello: Do you personally have any of those videos? Couy Griffin, the founder of the Cowboys for Trump group, appeared to turn on the former president during a QAnon event in Las Vegas. More immediately, Griffin is eyeing an open 2022 sheriffs race in another New Mexico county where he grew up. Clements ended on a mournful note just before the audience began trickling out into the quiet evening, the sun setting over fields of thirsty corn. Like others preaching the gospel of election fraud, Clements has attracted a large following online, where he mixes conspiracies with Christian nationalist and sometimes violent rhetoric. His concern is the direction of this country, where its going.. My mom worked at Kmart and Lowes, my dad bagged groceries, he said. Later, he served as the vice chair for legal affairs of the states Libertarian party. Because I want to make sure our voices are accurately captured. The first-term state representative and former Albuquerque middle school math teacher grew up in Chihuahua and has an engineering degree. The effort sparked a voter intimidation inquiry by the House Oversight Committee. Just weeks later, in October 2021, he was fired, by his own account, for refusing to wear a mask in class. "Cowboys for Trump" co-founder Couy Griffin speaks to reporters as he arrives at federal court in Washington on June 17, 2022. . Theyre going find out he didnt have anything to do with these types of things, he said. It makes me sick whenever I watch it.". A federal judge found Couy Griffin, a county commissioner from New Mexico and founder of the group "Cowboys For Trump," guilty on one of two counts stemming from the Capitol riot. Defiance of federal government and its oversight of public lands are staples of politics in Otero County, which spans an area three times the size of Delaware, from the dunes of White Sands National Park to the peaks of the Lincoln National Forest. But this is also a man who beat a "Mom and Pop business" that has 5 kids out of thousands of dollars. In Otero, two commissioners who had voted not to certify earlier in the week reversed their decisions and approved the results, bowing to an emergency order from the states Supreme Court that mandated them to follow their statutory duty. In July. His grandfather Wee Griffin held the Catron County post from 1963 to 1966. , VIDEO: Giant I-40 light poles sway in strong ABQ, Taxidermy birds used to make drones at New Mexico, PHOTOS: Storm leaves parts of state covered in snow, PHOTOS: Winter storm moves through NM leaving snow, PHOTOS: Storm causes snowy, icy roads across New, Map: New Mexico Veterans Monuments and Memorials, 13 Broadcast Pl SW, Albuquerque, NM, 87104, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Griffin is presumed innocent until proven guilty. ", "To the extent that their goal is to actually have a negative impact on voter confidence," she added, "we are very concerned about the election in 2022, and obviously in 2024.". . He has sent out a public plea in an attempt to win in the court of public opinion, by garnering a large showing of supporters, shoulder to shoulder to appear at the Otero County Courthouse. A jury will consider this week whether the support group . Clements came down from the mountain filled with zeal and sitting down in his garage armed with nothing more than a laptop and a crappy microphone soon began posting about alleged election fraud on YouTube. NELIGH, Neb. That case was appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals which declined to reverse the federal district court decision, After an appeal to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reverse the decision made by U.S. District Court's dismissal of a case where Cowboys for Trump tried to have the. Griffin went to court over the seatbelt ticket where he was ordered to pay the $81 fine. "I asked him, Mr. President, do you know where Cloudcroft, New Mexico is?" Why dont you go back to Africa and form your little football teams. Now, Clements has taken his message nationwide, traveling to small towns in more than a dozen states, with a focus, he said, on places that are forgotten and abandoned and overlooked. His crusade to prove that voting systems cant be trusted has deepened fears among election experts, who say his meritless claims could give Trump allies more fodder to try to disrupt elections in November and beyond. A state judge on Tuesday ordered Griffin removed from office, citing his role in having aided the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. D-101-CV-2022-00473, 2022 WL 4295619 (N.M. Dist. TULAROSA, N.M. He rodeoed in a Buffalo Bill-style Wild West show, carried his message on horseback from the Holy Land to Times Square and was invited to the White House to meet the president. Griffin took the oath of office in December 2018 when he was sworn in as a commissioner. Im a child of the trailer park. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Trump proposes building futuristic, Jetsons-like freedom cities on federal land, Pompeo calls $31 trillion national debt indecent at CPAC, Trump recites Pledge of Allegiance in collaboration on new song with J6 Prison Choir, Bidens laughable, late-to-the-game crackdown on massive COVID fraud. Whenever you say, China stole the election. But the project seems confusing at first glance, given that Trump won in Otero County. Ron DeSantis by about 15 points in a new Republican presidential poll, with newly announced candidate Nikki Haley and former Vice . By MORGAN LEE Associated Press February 28, 2023, 1:31 PM SANTA FE, N.M. -- Cowboys for Trump cofounder Couy Griffin confronted a trial by jury Tuesday on charges that he failed to register a political organization without filing related public financial disclosures. "The reports that we've subsequently seen put out by these people have been riddled with falsehoods," she said. Just this week, Griffins attorneys filed new motions on his behalf one demanding evidence and another claiming his charges are politically motivated. Copyright 2023 2nd Life Media AlamogordoTownNews.com. The Proud Boy. I'm sure the NM State Police will send you a video of the notorious cowboy criminal being cuffed and perp-walked. 1998 - 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved. Colorado State slices up Lobos; UNM is a 6 seed in league tourney, After bill was vetoed last year, lawmakers try again to boost pay of NM judges, If it MUST be the NIT, UNM basketball has a plan. So whats the solution?. This story has been shared 143,593 times. But go ahead and do whatever you need to do.Officer: Yes, sir. The need for the audit in New Mexico was more in the likes of Bernalillo County, and Sandoval County and Doa Ana County," referring to areas where President Joe Biden won the 2020 vote. He means no malice on anybody, said George Seeds, outside the New Heart Cowboy Church in Alamogordo where Griffin once served as pastor. I got a better idea. Griffin has acknowledged using the county building for promotional videos but said he never claimed they were . Hes also been suspended from Facebook and banished from Native American lands in his district as he contests charges of breaking into the Capitol grounds and disrupting Congress that could carry a one-year sentence. This guy has gone off the deep end. Its about the money, and this week in Otero County, New Mexico a jury will decide. In October, around the time he was fired from his university job, David and Erin Clements mailed a 261-page document to commissioners and county clerks across New Mexico alleging widespread issues with the voting systems what the congressional report called imaginary fraud..

What Happened To Deacon From King Of Queens, Why Is My Yocan Uni Blinking 5 Times, Beyond Scared Straight Willie Death, Cool 6 Letter Words For License Plates, Articles C