Addendum to Trump's pardon of Arpaio

The New York Times weighed in with its editorial board opinion about the presidential pardon of Arizona's Sheriff Jo Arpaio.   It was published Friday morning, before President Trump issued the pardon on Friday evening.  But it is just as relevant now.   In it, the editors wrote that:

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"Mr. Arpaio, an anti-immigrant hard liner who served 24 years in office before voters tossed him out last November, was convicted in July of criminal contempt of court for disregarding a federal judge's order to stop detaining people based solely on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally.

"Mr. Arpaio's sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 5.  He faces up to six months in prison, unless Mr. Trump gets to him first. . . . [which has now happened]

"Mr. Arpaio was an elected official who defied a federal court's order that he stop violating people's constitutional rights.  He was found in contempt of that court.  By pardoning him, Mr. Trump would [did] show his contempt for the American court system and its only means of enforcing the law, since it would be sending a message to other officials that they may flout court orders also. . . .

"Both men built their brands by exploiting racial resentment of white Americans.  While Mr. Trump was beginning his revanchist run for the White House on the backs of Mexican "rapists," Mr. Arpaio was terrorizing brown-skinned people across southern Arizona, sweeping them up in "saturation patrols" and holding them in what he referred to as a "concentration camp" for months at a time.

"It was this behavior that a federal judge in 2011 found to be unconstitutional and ordered Mr. Arpaio to stop.  He refused, placing himself above the law and the Constitution he had sworn to uphold. . . .

"Mr. Arpaio shows no sign of remorse;  to the contrary, he sees himself as the victim.  'If they can go after me, they can go after anyone in the country,' he told Fox News on Wednesday.   He's right -- in a nation based on the rule of law, anyone who ignores a court order, or otherwise breaks the law, may be prosecuted and convicted. . .  .

"What's remarkable here is that Mr. Trump is weighing mercy for a public official who did not just violate the law, but who remains proud of doing so.  The law-and-order president is cheering on an unrepentant lawbreaker.  Perhaps that's because Mr. Arpaio has always represented what Mr. Trump aspires to be:  a thuggish autocrat, who enforces the law as he pleases, without accountability or personal consequence."
                             New York Times editorial board opinion
                             August 25, 2017