He hinted that he would, and now he has done it. President Donald Trump has issued a presidential pardon to the 85 year old former Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, who lost his bid for re-election last year.
That loss came on the heels of his conviction of criminal contempt of court for defying a court order, in which the judge ordered him to cease having his deputies engage in stopping suspected undocumented immigrants -- for no reason other than that suspicion, with no other criminal activity -- and arresting them if they proved to lack proper immigration documents.
Let's be clear about this. It was a huge case that dragged on. Arpaio still has the court judgment being appealed; but in the meantime the judge ordered him to stop this practice -- he refused to obey the order.
As a result, the judge held him in civil contempt; when he still refused to obey, he was held in criminal contempt of court. That's what Trump has pardoned him for.
Donald Trump finds sites like Breitbart News and Alex Jones' Infowars more believable than his own national intelligence briefings. Jones' Infowars just this week ran a story claiming that Michelle Obama is really a man -- that's the quality of its work; and that's where President Trump gets a lot of what he chooses to believe -- even when it runs counter to what his security briefers tell him.
Are you surprised that Infowars has had a running campaign for some time now praising Arpaio as a hero and pushing very hard for an Arpaio pardon.
It's not just that, however. Arpaio, of course, is a hero to Trump's support base because of his demagoguery on immigration. He presented himself as "the toughest sheriff in America." So of course Trump was going to pardon him.
But it is a sad day when a pardon is given to a lawman who promotes lawlessness by the men and women under his command in violating the civil rights of others -- and then further promotes lawlessness by criminally defying a judge's order to stop that practice.
As president, Trump is within his right to issue this pardon, even though he did not follow the usual procedure of going through the Justice Department for review and recommendation. But he can just do it, and he did.
While legal, it so undermines the rule of law, that it could easily be considered as one more reason for impeachment, which is after all a political decision more than a criminal one.
Ralph
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment