Couy Griffin biography: 13 things about Cowboys for Trump founder from Otero County, New Mexico

Couy Griffin is an American man from Tularosa, Otero County, New Mexico, United States. He is a pastor, a Republican and the son of a former commissioner in Catron County, New Mexico.

A Donald Trump supporter, Griffin founded Cowboys for Trump and listed his sister Kay Griffin as its organizer. Here are 13 more things about Couy:

1. In 1999, he graduated from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico with a bachelor’s degree in business. _(a)
2. From 2000 to 2005, he worked at a Wild West show in Paris, France. _(a)
3. In 2006, he moved to Alamogordo, Otero County and served as a pastor of the New Heart Church in Alamogordo. From 2006 to 2007, he embarked on a series of horseback rides across the U.S. At the time, he publicized his tours as a street preacher through a horse named Daisy and a miniature mule called Black Jack. _(a)(b)
4. In 2008, he took an extensive horseback ride from Ireland down to Greece and to Jerusalem, Israel. _(a)
5. In 2014, his wife gave birth to their son. _(a)
6. While operating the Hitch-n-Post barbecue restaurant in Otero County, he successfully ran against his Democrat opponent Christopher Jones for the District 2 Otero County Commission seat in the general election in November 2018, which marked his first run for public office. _(a)
7. He was featured in a “Tucker Carlson Tonight” episode, which was aired on April 29, 2019. In September 2019, he traveled through a horseback ride along with several men from Cumberland, Maryland, USA to the White House in Washington, D.C., USA where he met Trump. _(b)
8. In 2020, Otero County’s Democratic Party chairman Jeff Swanson filed a lawsuit against him, accusing him of violating open-records laws after posting public records on his Facebook page then blocking residents he did not like. _(b)
9. On January 6, 2021, Trump’s supporters breached the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. while a joint session of Congress was certifying the vote of the Electoral College and affirming Joe Biden‘s victory in the 2020 presidential election. That day, he posted a video to Cowboys for Trump’s Facebook page, in which he said he “climbed up on the top of the Capitol building,” he had “a first row seat” and he intended to return to the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021, which was Biden’s inauguration day. When Federal Bureau of Investigation special agents interviewed him on January 11, 2021, he told them he travelled to Washington, D.C. that day with Cowboys for Trump media staff member Matt Struck on January 6, 2021 and neither he nor Struck entered the U.S. Capitol building at any time. During a council meeting in Otero County on January 14, 2021, he revealed his plans to go to Washington, D.C. either that day or on January 15, 2021, bring firearms with him and protest Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021. _(c)
10. On January 15, 2021, U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui signed a criminal complaint filed against him by a detective from the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia. He was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. On January 17, 2021, he was arrested in Washington, D.C. and was detained by the U.S. Capitol Police until the FBI took him into custody. _(c)
11. On March 22, 2022, he was found guilty of entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds but acquitted of another misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. _(d)
12. As an Otero County commissioner, he declined to certify the results of the June 7, 2022 primary election due to a mistrust of Dominion voting machines. On June 17, 2022, Judge Trevor McFadden sentenced him to 14 days in jail, a $3,000 fine, 60 hours of community service and a year of supervised release. He had been in jail for 20 days so he did not have to serve additional time. On September 6,2022, a New Mexico judge removed him from his elected position as a county commissioner for his role in the U.S. Capitol attack. _(e)(f)
13. He was 49 years old when he was arrested on May 20, 2023 on harassment and trespassing charges in connection with a dispute between him and Dewayne Braithwaite, who was staying at a residence owned by his family. _(g)

_SOURCES: 

• _{a. Alamogordo Daily News}
• _{b. Santa Fe New Mexican}
• _{c. U.S. Department of Justice}
• _{d. Alamogordo Daily News}
• _{e. CBS News}
• _{f. CNN}
• _{g. Albuquerque Journal}