Couy Griffin, the New Mexico county commissioner convicted Tuesday for trespassing on Capitol grounds during the January 6 riot, is unhappy with Marjorie Taylor Greene and other far right representatives for missing his brief trail in Washington.
““I know Marjorie Taylor Greene personally,” Mr Griffin said outside the courtroom following his guilty verdict on Tuesday. “I didn’t see Marjorie one time around this trial right here that’s affecting January 6. I didn’t see Louie Gohmert here. I didn’t see Matt Gaetz.”
In a statement provided to Newsweek, a spokesperson for Ms Greene wrote that “Congresswoman Greene has been one of the most vocal members of Congress speaking out against the treatment and conditions of January 6th pre-trial detainees.
In many situations, these Trump supporters have been treated as political prisoners held in solitary confinement for as much as 23 hours a day.
Congresswoman Greene will continue to defend the due process rights of pre-trial detainees.”
Mr Griffin was found guilty in a bench trial run by Donald Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden of trespassing on Capitol grounds after a short trial — a misdemeanour that could land him in jail for up to a year. He was acquitted of a disorderly conduct charge.
Much of the evidence against Mr Griffin came from video he filmed or had filmed while in Washington, including a video he posted to the Cowboys for Trump Facebook page in which he announced that he had “climbed up on the top of the Capitol building and... had a first row seat.”
The muted reaction to the trial from Mr Griffin’s ideological allies in Congress left Mr Griffin concerned that lawmakers consider themselves “too good to come down to the federal place where all of this is taking place, or going to the jail where those guys are still locked up.”
Mr Gohmert and Mr Gaetz have had trouble of their own in recent months — Mr Gaetz has been a central figure in a sex trafficking investigation, while Mr Gohmert finished in a distant fourth in the Republican primary for Texas Attorney General and will not be in elected office next year.
Nearly 800 people have been charged with crimes relating to their participation in the riot, and Mr Griffin was one of ten who either held or had recently run for elected office. Mr Griffin, who is still an Otero County Commissioner, is now the second individual to be convicted of a crime on January 6 this year.
