“He has proven that he believes violence is on the table,” the magistrate said. “His statements show me a lack of faith and confidence in the legitimacy of this government … I do not believe he will believe that the orders should be respected or followed.”
Griffin is known for his provocative and sometimes disturbing statements at Otero County commission meetings and elsewhere. “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat,” he said during a rally in May before insisting he speak metaphorically. After the storm wind on the Capitol on Jan. 6, Griffin said he plans to return to Washington armed on Inauguration Day, armed for a second amendment.
Griffin was arrested Jan. 17 near a security checkpoint in Washington. He faces one offense of entering an area without restriction during the riot earlier in the month.
A Griffin’s lawyer said he was ‘holding back’ his statement on Democrats and that all of Griffin’s statements were within the standard of the first amendment, but the judge sounded dubious.
“You can’t say something and then you say you don’t really mean it,” Faruqui said. “Words matter. Facts matter … I do not think it’s political speech. It’s far from over.”
Griffin’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, argued that his client’s concerns about the executive and the legislature did not extend to the courts. “Nothing in the record indicates that he has no respect for the judiciary,” Smith said.
However, the judge said he saw no reason to make such a distinction.
Smith also argued that prosecutors should have shown that Griffin knew he was a secret service guard at the Capitol when he allegedly violated the barriers outside.
Faruqui said it was obvious to anyone that Vice President Mike Pence was inside because of his role in the allocation of voting votes – the process that was the January 6 protesters. The judge also named members of Congress and wrongly said they were protected by the Secret Service.
“This is not something that has been transferred to a civilian class,” the magistrate said. “It was an international news report … I think it’s a fair distraction.”
An initial trial for Griffin, which took place on January 21, was broken down after he allegedly refused to speak to the judge by telephone and refused to take a Covid-19 test that would allow him to go to a area of the DC prison to go where inmates join the video court hearings.
Smith said the episode was a misunderstanding and that his client thought guards were trying to get him to talk to a lawyer who wanted to represent him. Griffin has since taken a coronavirus test and placed it in the general population, the defense said.
Griffin, a former street preacher and cowboy artist at the Disneyland in Paris, is one of the accused facing the lightest charges in federal court cases following the riot in the Capitol. He faces a maximum sentence on the current charge of up to one year in prison. Prosecutors did not allege that he entered the Capitol, but only that he went through the police officers and took them in during the nearby position on the Capitol stairs.
Griffin can appeal the magistrate’s ruling to court judge Beryl Howell, who said she considered the January 6 events to be extraordinarily serious.