For the first time since 1869, a judge has ordered an elected official be removed from office for violating the 14th Amendment by breaking his oath of office to support and defend the US Constitution when he participated in the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) reports.
Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, the founder of Cowboys for Trump, was ordered by state Judge Francis Mathew to be removed from his official position for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, known as the Disqualification Clause, which disqualifies anyone from elected office . Numerous groups and individuals, including the NAACP, joined a lawsuit seeking Griffin’s removal from office.
Eyewitnesses testified that they saw Griffin take the lead in getting people to attack the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection. Griffin himself entered the Capitol during the violence, although he reportedly did not destroy any property in the building. Other evidence, including Griffin’s speeches to rallies and groups prior to the attack, in which he called for undermining the Constitution, were also presented to the court during the trial.
The Disqualification Clause reads:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
Griffin was found guilty by a federal court for entering restricted grounds during the January 6th attack on the Capitol. He was sentenced to sentenced to 14 days in jail, a $3,000 fine, 60 hours of community service and a year of supervised release in June. Griffin’s Twitter account has been silent since just prior to his conviction.
“This is a historic win for accountability for the January 6th insurrection and the efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power in the United States. Protecting American democracy means ensuring those who violate their oaths to the Constitution are held responsible,” said CREW President Noah Bookbinder. “This decision makes clear that any current or former public officials who took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and then participated in the January 6th insurrection can and will be removed and barred from government service for their actions.”
This is the first time since the antebellum era after the Civil War that the Disqualification Clause has been successfully used to remove an official from office for acting against his oath of office. Suits had been filed to use the Amendment to take Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) and now-lame-duck North Carolina Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn off the ballot, but they did not prevail in court.