Momentum but Challenges in Ousting Jan. 6 ‘Insurrectionists’

A judge’s order ousting a New Mexico county commissioner for participating in the Jan. 6 riot buoyed activists targeting President Donald Trump but it might be an overreach to infer too much from the ruling, legal scholars said.

The insurrectionist case against Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin was less complicated because it involved a current government official who was criminally prosecuted for his involvement in Jan. 6, said Keith Whittington, a professor of politics at Princeton University.

“It creates some momentum, but it still leaves open the issue of just how many people are going to fall in that particular ...