The man who started Cowboys for Donald Trump said Tuesday that prosecutors used him as a testing ground before they moved to bar the ex-president from Colorado's state ballot.
Speaking to NBC News, Couy Griffin explained, "President Trump is at the very top, and I am at the very bottom, but a lot of the things they are trying to go after Trump on they have already been after me on. I have kind of been a testing ground for the legal stuff.”
Griffin was kicked out of his office as a county commissioner in New Mexico in September 2022 as a result of violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment when he participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Donald Trump's similar case that's currently at the Supreme Court over the Colorado general election ballot will have an impact on him too — his appeal to the Supreme Court is also pending.
Legal analysts think that Trump will likely be allowed on the ballot, but that may not necessarily help Griffin whose case is very different than Trump's as he wasn't president. The court will discuss his case privately on Friday.
The cowboy's lawyer, Peter Ticktin, said his client is currently barred from holding all offices unless he moves to another state.
"He can't even run for dog-catcher," Ticktin said.
Legal scholars have debated the issue for months. Some have claimed the office of the president isn't actually a constitutional office, so the 14th Amendment doesn't apply. That would not be the same for Griffin.
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Speaking to NBC, University of California professor Vikram Amar said that if the Supreme Court goes that route it would be "fabricated by the court."
In one brief signed by former conservative Judge Michael Luttig and others, the case was made that Trump fit the textualist understanding of the amendment.
Trump "engaged in the insurrection," he "incited the threat and use of violent force as his last opportunity to stop the peaceful transfer of executive power," they said.
Amar said that if the justices reject the idea that Section 3 is "self-executing" then, "I suppose you can make up whatever you want."
