Cowboys for Trump founder convicted of entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds on January 6

Washington – Cowboys for Trump founder and commissioner of Otero County, New Mexico, has been found guilty of entering the restricted grounds of the U.S. Capitol by January 6but he was acquitted of another misdemeanor for conduct disorder.

Judge Trevor McFadden ruled from the bench on Tuesday that Couy Griffin was guilty of charges of entering the Capitol grounds illegally in the vicinity of the then vice president. Mike Pencewho was in the Capitol Building to certify the count of the Electoral College votes and remained in the Capitol complex during the riot.

A U.S. Secret Service inspector said Monday that Pence was taken to an underground cargo dock under the Capitol building while the attack unfolded. The video of Pence’s moves throughout Jan. 6 was handed over to the Court after a one-day effort that began Monday morning between prosecutors and the U.S. Capitol Police Board.

But McFadden testified that Griffin was not guilty of the second charge of disorderly conduct, saying Tuesday Griffin’s attempt to get the crowd to pray with him “surely” was not disorderly, but an attempt to calm the crowd.

Griffin, who began his two-day trial arriving at the courthouse in a truck carrying a horse trailer and a cowboy hat, was not charged with any act of physical violence or even entered the courthouse. Capitol building on January 6, but to be present at the Capitol restricted because law enforcement had cordoned off and closed to the public prior to election certification.

He was arrested in the weeks following the attack and held in pretrial detention before his legal team was released on bail. Griffin continually maintained his innocence and argued that he did not know that Pence was still in the area.

Unlike the first trial of the extensive investigation of January 6 in which a the jury convicted the rioter Guy Reffitt of several crimesGriffin opted for a bank trial in which a federal judge would quickly hear evidence from both parties and decide his fate.

Griffin told CBS News that he would have opted for a jury trial anywhere other than Washington, DC, because he said it would be difficult to find a fair jury in DC. , he said.

Griffin, the first elected official to be tried in the Jan. 6 investigation, did not testify in his defense.

Although the trial lasted longer than expected, as it entered its second day on Tuesday, McFadden quickly ruled on the split verdict.

Prosecutors’ star witness Monday was Matthew Struck, a videographer and member of Cowboys for Trump who said he traveled with Griffin to Washington, DC ahead of President Trump’s January 6 Save America rally. Struck was granted legal immunity in exchange for his testimony against his only friend.

Struck made videos of the iPhone documenting the attack on the Capitol, and the government reproduced some of them for the judge in which other members of the mob were seen climbing the walls of the Capitol building. Strick and Griffin were seen climbing stairs to a temporary platform on the west front of the building erected for President Biden’s inauguration.

“I love the smell of napalm in the air,” prosecutors said Griffin said in one of the videos as he stepped onto the opening stage. Struck had to listen to his video of the riots a couple of times in court on Monday to decipher what the defendant actually said before he finally paid with prosecutors. The government argued that this and other statements made during and after the riot indicated that Griffin knew he was on restricted grounds.

The crowd chanted “stop the robbery” while Struck said Griffin, who is also a pastor, tried to pray for them and acted nonviolently.

“We were there to pray. We prayed and then we left,” Struck said of the duo’s presence at the Capitol during cross-examination. He stated that Griffin did not threaten any physical violence or even interact with any law enforcement officers outside the building.

Prosecutors also played Struck’s court videos of Griffin before and after the riots, which he said Struck recently filed in the midst of new requests for evidence. The defense said these videos should not be allowed as evidence because the government shared the videos for review too soon before the trial and the judge ruled that most trials should be banned. with the accused. .

“It was like an amazing big Trump rally,” Griffin explained in one of the videos shot on January 7, 2021, “I sat two feet from where Joe Biden or whoever is installed as president.”

“We have the statements of the defendant who knew that this area was restricted,” prosecutor Janani Iyengar argued in her final statement on Tuesday, trying to convince the judge that the case against Griffin is simple. “The defendant was upset because the election had been certified.”

Also at trial during the trial was the disputed testimony of U.S. Secret Service Inspector Lanelle Hawa, whom prosecutors called to confirm that then-Vice President Mike Pence was indeed present inside the restricted Capitol complex and had the intended to return to the Capitol building in January. 6, a vital component of the charges against Griffin.

The government tried unsuccessfully to limit the types of questions the defense could ask Hawaii during cross-examination to avoid disclosing potentially sensitive information about Pence’s whereabouts. The judge rejected that attempt, saying Pence’s location on Jan. 6 was relevant to the charges in Griffin’s case and that it was up to the government to balance the evidence in his case with the necessary confidentiality.

Hawa and a Capitol police inspector who also testified that he also said that in anticipation of Pence’s work on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, the entire Capitol building and the Underground Capitol Visitor Center and the cargo were not open to the public. The restricted area, Hawa said, was not unique, but an “agreed standard boundary” based on a long-standing relationship between the Secret Service and Capitol Police.

When the crowd descended on the Capitol grounds, Pence was taken from the Senate floor to his ceremonial office and finally to a secure underground loading dock under the Capitol building, under the Senate side plaza. during the Capitol riot, Hawa said. Monday.

Defense attorney Nicholas Smith argued in both pre-trial and trial-wide submissions that the case was more complex than the government’s presentation. “This case is based on a series of false assumptions and premises,” he said.

His client did not know that Pence was in the Capitol complex during the riots, but instead thought that the election had already been certified and that Pence had left the area, meaning the Capitol complex was no longer restricted. Regardless of what really happened, Smith argued, Griffin’s “state of mind” was that he was in no way close to the current vice president and therefore did not break the law, an argument on which McFadden he seemed skeptical even before condemning Griffin, calling him “absurd” in practice.

“No one thinks random tourists can waltz up there, right,” the judge asked Smith during Tuesday’s final arguments, which defense attorney quickly denied that the jurisprudence makes clear that the legal precedent says the opposite. Griffin was praying and talking to a quiet part of the crowd, Smith said, “that’s the opposite of incitement.”

The judge agreed with the defense at this point, acquitting Griffin of disorderly conduct so he said it was a failed attempt by prosecutors to characterize the defendant’s actions as complying with the legal definition of disorder.

Griffin faces up to two years in prison.