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Cowboys for Trump founder turns against former president

Cowboys for Trump founder turns against former president

The founder of Cowboys for Trump turned against former president Donald Trump at a QAnon conference in Las Vegas over the weekend.

Couy Griffin, who was one of the numerous people who took part on the raid at the Capitol on 6 January and was arrested for allegedly leading the rioters in a prayer, said he was disappointed in the president’s failure to imprison his former opponent Hillary Clinton.

“What did the president tell us? ‘If I was in charge of the law, you’d be in jail,” Mr Griffin. “Ok, Mr President, you were in charge of the law for four years. The only ones that were locked up were men like me and others like me that have stood by the president the strongest.”

The Associated Press reported in August that federal prosecutors offered Mr Griffin a plea deal. But during the conference, Mr Griffin decried his treatment at the Washington, DC Department of Corrections.

“The first nine days of which was spent in total 24-hour-a-day solitary confinement,” he said. “They didn’t let me take a shower, they didn’t let me use the phone.”

Mr Griffin also said he was berated by people in the facility because they said he was a racist.

“So can you imagine the treatment that a Trump supporter gets when you get thrown in a DC Department of Corrections jail when every jail guard there is black and they’ve been told that you’re the racist person,” he said. “It was very difficult y’all and it was very hard. My heart goes out to those that are still inside because solitary confinement is a place that you can’t put into words.”

Mr Griffin is also a county commissioner for Otero County, New Mexico and recently survived a recall attempt when petitioners failed to receive a sufficient amount of signatures. He founded Cowboys for Trump with acquaintances from rodeos in 2019, the AP reported. He’d also met with Mr Trump in the Oval Office in 2019 and earlier that year, rode horses with the group into Washington to support the then-president.

In addition, Mr Griffin has raised skepticism that Trump supporters engaged in violence on 6 January, saying militant leftists were responsible, the AP reported.