Ex-prosecutor explains 'test case' for disqualifying Trump from office over insurrection

The search for historical precedent for disqualifying Donald Trump from ever holding public office again is just a click away.

That's according to the leader of a nonpartisan government ethics and accountability watchdog group, who said Thursday that a recent case establishes the basis for disqualifying the former president from serving another term in the White House.

Former federal prosecutor Noah Bookbinder cited the case of a Jan. 6 rioter who was removed from his elected position as a New Mexico county commissioner for participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, in which he played a role in a “insurrection” against the U.S. government.

A New Mexico judge in September of last year ordered that Couy Griffin violated a 14^th Amendment clause for his role in the “insurrection.”

“If you were a Confederate leader or were a participant in the Confederacy, you were banned from holding office and so mostly they didn't try, but when they did try, in a number of states people went to court and judges ruled that these former Confederate officials were disqualified,” Bookbinder said during an appearance on the “Politics With Cheri Jacobus” podcast.

“And we set out, last year actually to, to show them that same process still applies today."

Bookbinder said the Otero County commissioner fit the profile they were looking for.

“He was a founder group called 'Cowboys for Trump,' he was somebody who was on the steps of the Capitol on January 6, but he also participated in…recruiting people, rounding people up to go to the Capitol on that day. He was somebody who called for violence, called for force on that day. He was not personally violent, but he laid the groundwork for that violence and normalized it,” Bookbinder said.

Griffin’s removal was the result of a successful lawsuit alleging he violated the 14^th Amendment clause.

“So three residents of New Mexico who brought suit in court in a state court in New Mexico to have Griffin disqualified from office, and the court ultimately did disqualify him from office,” Bookbinder said.

“It was the first time in 150 years, that that happened, and the court found that for the purposes of the Constitution, January 6, it was an insurrection, that Couy Griffin engaged in that insurrection."

“The court found that you didn't have to be personally violent, inciting others was very much in the core of what the Constitution had in mind. And you know, that really lays the groundwork for moving on to Donald Trump.”

Listen to the clip below or click here.