'Cowboys for Trump' founder faces year in prison

Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin was convicted Tuesday of illegally entering the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.

A federal judge, however, acquitted Griffin on charges he engaged in disorderly conduct during the riot in which supporters of President Donald Trump attempted to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election win.

Sentencing is scheduled June 17. Griffin faces a maximum of one year in prison.

Griffin’s trial in Washington, D.C., was the second held in connection with the siege. Earlier this month, a jury convicted a Texas man of storming the Capitol.

Griffin, 48, also has legal issues in New Mexico. Last week, the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office charged the controversial Otero County commissioner with failing to register his pro-Trump organization as a political committee.

For that, Griffin is facing a misdemeanor count of violating the campaign reporting act.

Griffin was dealt a blow last month when the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reverse a ruling that the group had to register in New Mexico as a political organization.

In 2020, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver ordered Griffin to register Cowboys for Trump before the group challenged the law in court.

The AG’s Office, in a news release, said Griffin had still not complied with the order to register, nor filed the required reports or paid the statutory fine of $7,800.

“We live in a nation that ensures that no elected official is above the law,” Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement. “Citizens have the right to expect reporting and disclosure transparency from all elected officials.”

When reached by phone Friday, Griffin said the AG should focus on more important matters.

“Hector can take his misdemeanor and ... give it to someone else,” he said, adding that the AG’s Office should focus on getting justice for the women he says were sexually assaulted on Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico.

Griffin said he has asked the court to reconsider its ruling on Cowboys for Trump and expects to win the “second time around.”

Matthew Reisen of the Albuquerque Journal contributed to this report.