Jan. 6 trial for ‘Cowboys for Trump’ leader begins

The trial for “Cowboys for Trump” leader Couy Griffin began on Monday over charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Griffin, a 48-year-old New Mexico county commissioner, was charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building in connection to the Jan. 6 riot. A federal judge in February 2021 ordered him to be held in detention while awaiting trial.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., had argued that he was a flight risk. Griffin’s attorneys, however, called for him to be released, claiming that he did not physically enter the Capitol building during the riot and contending that he planned to abide by the court’s orders.

Griffin’s trial marks the second to take place in connection to the Jan. 6 attack. The first, which was for Guy Wesley Reffitt, concluded earlier this month with a guilty verdict on all five charges.

Prosecutors ahead of the trial said Griffin was at the riot, citing comments he made on social media in which he said he “climbed up on top of the Capitol building and … had a first row seat.”

Griffin requested a bench trial, which gives a judge the authority to make a decision in the case without a jury, according to The Associated Press. Only two other Capitol riot defendants have asked for the same proceeding. Judge Trevor McFadden presided over the trial on Monday.

The first witness that appeared in the trial was Matthew Struck, who was Griffin’s videographer at the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the AP. Struck entered an immunity agreement with prosecutors so he could provide testimony.

Prosecutors in a court filing wrote that Griffin is “an inflammatory provocateur and fabulist who engages in racist invective and propounds baseless conspiracy theories, including that Communist China stole the 2020 Presidential Election.”

The defense, however, is arguing that Griffin is on trial because of a speech and prayer he delivered at the Capitol. They claimed that hundreds of other individuals have not been penalized for acting in a way similar to their client.

“The evidence will show that the government selected Griffin for prosecution based on the fact that he gave a speech and led a prayer at the Capitol, that is, selected him based on protected expression,” Griffin’s attorneys wrote, according to the AP.

More than 775 defendants have been arrested in connection to the Jan. 6 riot 14 months after the attack, according to the Department of Justice.