Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

He really is that stupid.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Fight them, without becoming them!

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Second rate reporter says what?

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

You are here: Home / One day the bottom will drop out

One day the bottom will drop out

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Noah Smith Feldman is a typical Bloomberg View both-sides-do-it wanker so seeing this from him….

If President Donald Trump pardons Joe Arpaio, as he broadly hinted at during a rally Tuesday in Arizona, it would not be an ordinary exercise of the power — it would be an impeachable offense. Arpaio, the former sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County, was convicted of criminal contempt of court for ignoring the federal judge’s order that he follow the U.S. Constitution in doing his job. For Trump to pardon him would be an assault on the federal judiciary, the Constitution and the rule of law itself.

To see why pardoning Arpaio would be so exceptional — and so bad — you have to start with the sheriff’s crime. Arpaio wasn’t convicted by a jury after a trial for violating some specific federal statute. Rather, he was convicted by a federal judge on the rather unusual charge of criminal contempt of court.

I await Jonathan Turley’s and Alan Dershowtiz’s thoughtful retorts.

Reader Interactions

161Comments

  4. 4.

    efgoldman

    I await Jonathan Turley’s and Alan Dershowtiz’s thoughtful retorts.

    You can just ask the hammers in your toolbox. They are both tools.

  8. 8.

    The Dangerman

    OK, Dodgers haven’t started and the steak is little better than tartare. Politics for a little while.

    My only wonder is why Trump did this on a Friday night of a Hurricane weekend; that’s pretty gutless. Trump WANTS to show how big a dick he is; hell, if he could get away with it, he’d go out on the Portico and wear a white, pointy sheet.

    His poll numbers must suck; today, we had the transgender thing and the pardon thing. His debased base must be unhappy.

  9. 9.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I hope so. This goes far and beyond normal partisan politics. This is the stuff dictatorships are made from.

  10. 10.

    Doug!

    @The Dangerman:

    My only wonder is why Trump did this on a Friday night of a Hurricane weekend; that’s pretty gutless. Trump WANTS to show how big a dick he is; hell, if he could get away with it, he’d go out on the Portico and wear a white, pointy sheet.

    My take too. This isn’t his style.

  11. 11.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Reposting for max visibility:

    I mentioned writing ideas here before. I have terrible track record of actually putting pen to paper. I get bogged down in details often. A new idea I have is perhaps writing a sort of homage to Lovecraft’s comic horror stories, only this time set in rural Ohio, a place I have some familiarity with ?. I wanted to orginally set my short story in the Outer Cape of Massachusetts, but it wouldn’t have worked for what I wanted.

    Do you think rural Ohio has horror potential?

    I do. Plenty of old, decaying barns, large dark woods, and rolling hills.

  12. 12.

    The Dangerman

    @Doug!:

    This isn’t his style.

    No, not even close. It makes me wonder if he isn’t well or there was an outside influence (Ivanka: “Oooh, Daddy, it would make me so hot if you pardoned Arpaio tonight”).

  13. 13.

    JMG

    Trump is fundamentally yellow (much like his supporters). Look how he folded in the debates. This is totally his style. This should be the line of attack. Trump is a gutless loser, and if you support him, well….

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    I think you guys are misunderestimating exactly how cold this is: he’s doing this specifically so that if people complain or protest, he can self-righteously proclaim that they’re clearly bad people because they’re not even thinking about the disaster victims in Texas.

    And if you think that no one is that craven and manipulative, you’ve never had to deal with a narcissist before.

  27. 27.

    japa21

    @Baud: I think this may do to the GOP in Arizona what prop 187 did to the GOP in California. And it might well spread into TX.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @japa21: I hope so. I was hoping they would be activated based on what Trump was saying on the campaign trail and what the GOP did under Obama.

  30. 30.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Okay. I have thought about it. This isn’t strategic, it’s not to shore up his base, and Trump has not in the past and never will consider the implications. He’s too stupid for that.

    This is because he’s royally fucking pissed that he’s getting shit because he doesn’t want to denounce Nazis. He either considers himself one, or is so sympathetic to their racist message that he hates lying and claiming he isn’t. It’s clear in how he has handled the whole Charlottesville thing, isn’t it?

    I thought the whole ‘kept a copy of Mein Kampf handy’ thing was just a sign of him being an asshole who liked dictators. No, it’s looking like he’s just that incredibly racist and actually cares about defending Nazis.

  31. 31.

    Ohio Mom

    @Baud: Yes, Kay is a rural Buckeye. In a lot of her stories, she comes off like the characters Bob Newhart played in his sitcoms: the only grounded and reasonable person besides his spouse for as far as the eye can see.

    I’m thinking particularly of the tough love tears she’s been on about the people she sees who need Medicaid but support Trump.

  35. 35.

    Another Scott

    @japa21: It’s pretty hard for any community touched by Arpaio (and those all over the US who turned him into a “hero”) not to see what a horrible turn of events this pardon is. It should be a tremendously motivating factor in upcoming elections.

    But we can’t count on it.

    This isn’t normal and we can’t accept that it is some new normal. We still have to fight them every single day.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  37. 37.

    Mnemosyne

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    No, it’s looking like he’s just that incredibly racist and actually cares about defending Nazis.

    Also, this. That’s also what makes me think it’s a classic narcissist passive-aggressive move — he does something assholish and then will declare that no one gets to say he’s an asshole because more important things are going on.

    Watch and see.

  45. 45.

    japa21

    @Another Scott:

    This isn’t normal and we can’t accept that it is some new normal. We still have to fight them every single day.

    I agree. This is not some magic pill. But it is a weapon Trump has given us to use against not just him, but also the GOP in general. Unfortunately, in the past the Dems have not used those weapons wisely, which is partially why we are in the mess we are today. Let’s hope this turns out differently.

  46. 46.

    lamh36

    This Joy Ann Reid twitter thread about what this pardon means in the overall Chump “strategy” is how I have been feeling in the back of my cynical mind about why Mueller’s investigation, will ultimately come to not much…

    @JoyAnnReid 14m14 minutes ago
    More
    Someone up here where we’re vacationing made a great point last night that seems apropos post-Arpaio pardon.

    @JoyAnnReid 13m13 minutes ago
    More
    What’s to stop Trump from simply asking every Russiagate target to lie to Bob Mueller’s team, with the promise of a pardon?

    Trump clearly doesn’t care about the rule of law, and his history as a businessman is to do the corruption and just pay or delay the fine.

    What in Trump’s nature suggests he *wouldn’t* try to induce all of the Mueller targets to lie for him, and promise them pardons in the end?

    @JoyAnnReid 12m12 minutes ago
    More
    With Trump, you have to consider literally every lurid thing to be possible. He has no moral compass whatsoever that I’ve been able to see.

  48. 48.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @Ksmiami:
    Never been there. Originally considered Massachusetts Cape Cod area but wouldn’t work for my purposes.

    My experience:

    On my 30 minute drive to uni, I remember a year back a car parked just off the 2 lane road to these woods. I would pass it for several months while it sat there, never moving. Eventually it disappeared. I figured somebody either vanished or killed themselves in those woods.

  49. 49.

    Redshift

    @Frankensteinbeck: I go back and forth between believing that he’s sincerely white supremacist and believing he has no core beliefs, but stands with white supremacists because he can always get a cheering crowd by spouting racist bullshit.

  50. 50.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Mnemosyne:

    if you think that no one is that craven and manipulative, you’ve never had to deal with a narcissist before.

    We don’t all live in NYC or LA!

  52. 52.

    Ridnik Chrome

    I can’t believe he pardoned that fucker. I mean, I can believe him wanting to do it, but I can’t believe it actually happening. Arpaio is a disgrace to everything the justice system is supposed to stand for. He’s a sadist and proud of it. What the fuck is happening to this country?

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Oh, it’s going to be said. It’s just a matter of who says it first, Huckabee-Sanders or Conway. Possibly Pence, with that constipated stick up his ass look on his face.

    But someone in the administration is going to say it before Monday.

  57. 57.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Redshift:
    He is sincerely racist. There is no question of that. He was doing and saying blatantly racist shit long before it had any political advantage. The question was how racist, and I keep having to revise that upwards. It ultimately doesn’t make much of a political difference, but damn, it’s really looking like he’s a Nazi.

  59. 59.

    Redshift

    @lamh36:

    What’s to stop Trump from simply asking every Russiagate target to lie to Bob Mueller’s team, with the promise of a pardon?

    Nothing, other than that they’d have to be idiots to trust him to follow through.

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: French in high school and college. Picked up some German in the army. Probably should start picking up some Spanish.

    ETA: And Dutch. Just to be polite in exile.

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    @Mnemosyne: I don’t think that they plan that far ahead, myself.

    Remember, Donnie’s house leaks like a colander.

    I think there were people thinking about what to do about Arpaio as soon as he was convicted (around July 31). Donnie was burned on his first travel ban, so his minions knew that they had to get the right language, think about the implications, etc., before announcing a pardon. That takes time.

    Once Donnie went to Arizona it was basically done, so they let him send up the trial balloon to see how the crowd reacted. Once that went “well”, then it was a go and it was put on the list for the Friday dump.

    They weren’t trying to bury it in the hurricane, they were trying to put it in the Friday dump so that the hated “Fake News” press wouldn’t be able to scoop their Twitter bots and so forth.

    Similarly with the DOD/DHS trans ban. That took so long because Donnie lied when he said that he’d talked it over with “his generals” and they agreed. They didn’t know anything about it, so the minions had to scramble to come up with something that wouldn’t cause mass resignations and be immediately thrown out of court.

    If these things were done last week, they would have been released last week, to show his loving cult members that he’s getting so much done and “winning so much that [they’ll] get sick of it”.

    Trump’s administration isn’t competent. They have no great schemes that are outsmarting everyone else.

    They’re completely transparent about what they’re trying to do. They’re (fortunately) incompetent at it. But lots of lives are being ruined in the process.

    :-(

    I expect that the courts will continue to throw up obstacles in Donnie’s way, and wouldn’t be surprised if Arpaio faces lots of state and civil suits if he does accept this pardon.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  67. 67.

    Amir Khalid

    @Baud:

    Los leopardos han terminado de comer sus caras y están disfrutando de un sorbete agradable.

    Let’s see if I can understand this without resorting to Google Translate:
    “The leopards have finished eating our faces and are now having some nice sorbet for dessert.”

  69. 69.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Redshift:
    This is actually a good point. Bear in mind, Trump didn’t pardon someone useful to him. He pardoned a flaming racist with no connection to him whatsoever. Trump does not do loyalty. He does spite.

  70. 70.

    lamh36

    @Steve in the ATL: Bullshit…Markos is not some dumb idiots… If he wanted to say “Latinos” he would have said Latinos

    he said “communities of color”… and it’s bullshit…fuq a “you took it the wrong way, what I meant was” excuse.

    And if he had said “Latinos”… saying non-voting Latinos are the reason for Trump being elected…in states where the Lation population isn’t gonna change anything, and Trump STILL won!!

    It’s bullshit…

  72. 72.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    There’s a whole lot of folk out there that think the “Face Eating Leopard Party” won’t actually eat their faces until it actually starts eating faces.

    At this point, I am 1000% on the side of the leopards.

    Gimme an L!
    Gimme an E!
    Gimme an O!
    Gimme a P!
    Gimme an A!
    Gimme an R!
    Gimme a D!
    Gimme an S!

    GO LEOPARDS!! YAAAAAY!!!

    Leopards, leopards,
    Run those bases,
    Leopards, leopards,
    Win those races,
    Leopards, leopards,
    Eat those faces,
    YAY! LEOPARDS!!!

  77. 77.

    Steve in the ATL

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I got tired of madame’s family pointing at me, saying stuff in Korean and laughing.

    At least “Seinfeld” did an episode about you. That’s pretty cool.

  78. 78.

    Ridnik Chrome

    @Omnes Omnibus: Here in NYC there’s a travel bookstore that regularly offers classes in Spanish, Italian, French and German. I took three of the Spanish classes before I went to Spain, and it was a big help. Of course, living in a city with a large Latino population (like New York or Chicago or LA) means you’ve already absorbed a lot of Spanish just by osmosis.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @Ridnik Chrome:

    Arpaio is a disgrace to everything the justice system is supposed to stand for.

    He’s one of Trump’s corrupt cronies so he’s above the law. Arpaoi will be out grifting in a month. He probably already has a Fox slot lined up.

    These people are just disgusting. Just to put a cherry on top the cowards did it in the middle of a hurricane.

  81. 81.

    BBA

    The one heartening thing about this pardon is that, on a more ideologically diverse forum I frequent, even some of the alt-right people are aghast. There’s even a line that they won’t cross.

    Now if only I could cure my Likudnik mom, who has defended his every move because at least he won’t sell Netanyahu out like Hillary would.

  82. 82.

    tobie

    @lamh36: This sounds like it could open a whole new can of worms. You can pardon someone for conspiracy with a foreign government and/or you can pardon individuals for perjury but can you pardon them for both when their perjury pertains to their work conspiring with a foreign government?

    The disturbing thing about tonight’s pardon is that it sends a signal to Manafort and Flynn and others that they don’t have to cooperate with Mueller, no matter how much pressure he brings to bear on them, since Trump will pardon them anyway. Usually a prosecutor needs to break a witness or suspect at some point to put together a case. It looks like Mueller will have to find direct evidence of collusion, since there’s very little with which he can threaten Manafort and Flynn. Tonight’s pardon was a signal to them that they don’t have to worry about legal consequences.

  83. 83.

    lamh36

    @BreeNewsome
    Bree Newsome Retweeted
    HUH? Are folks still on this talking point of blaming the minority population whose vote is suppressed for white people electing a racist?

  84. 84.

    NoraLenderbee

    @Frankensteinbeck: I thought he was racist the way a lot of New Yorkers and East Coasters are–blacks should have rights and not be lynched, they just need to stay out of the neighborhood and of course they’re mentally inferior, so keep em all in special ed. (I grew up there.)
    The white supreme stuff makes me think it’s more than that.

  90. 90.

    NoraLenderbee

    @lamh36: +100. Stop blaming people who stood in line for hours and STILL couldn’t vote.
    I’m worried that a lot of new voters will give up, after seeing that (a) they were denied their right or (b) they voted, they were the majority, and we lost anyway

  91. 91.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    No one involved with Russia will spend a single day in jail. Bookmark it Libs !

  92. 92.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ridnik Chrome:

    I can’t believe he pardoned that fucker. I mean, I can believe him wanting to do it, but I can’t believe it actually happening.

    Well, there’s always the chance his minions didn’t do the paperwork properly. Possibly on purpose, even.

    Be a very Trump-like coda if Arpaio gets led off in handcuffs during his VICTORY IS OURS! press conference, because it turns out Trump (saying he would be) signing a piece of paper wasn’t the only thing required.

  93. 93.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lamh36:

    I’ve studied Latin, French, Italian, German, and Hebrew, but never Spanish. I thought pendejo meant “stupid,” but am beginning to think it may have other meanings. Enlightenment, por favor?

  94. 94.

    SgrAstar

    @lamh36: I think Joy-Ann Reid fails to grasp the niceties of prosecution. Mueller’s team won’t just bring people before the grad juries; his prosecutors will already know what happened. They won’t be sitting ducks for liars and deceivers- that behavior is old hat for experienced litigators, and they will have run down the facts before the lying liars ever get the chance to try our their mendacity. Pro tip for them: it won’t work.

  95. 95.

    BBA

    @Anne Laurie: There is no paperwork for a pardon. The President’s word is effective by itself.

    I often see right-wingers trolling, “Oh, now you don’t like unlimited executive power?” The problem is there’s never been any limits on the most dangerous executive powers – the military, foreign relations, the pardon. Maybe the Constitution needs a redo.

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @Ridnik Chrome:
    In CA that’s called spanglish, because it’s not one or the other. And yes I was told that by the woman who owned the taqueria next door. Great food by the way, if you are ever in northern Marin county.

  105. 105.

    efgoldman

    @lamh36:

    What in Trump’s nature suggests he *wouldn’t* try to induce all of the Mueller targets to lie for him, and promise them pardons in the end?

    If he did, and I wouldn’t put it past a spiteful four year old, it would probably make Schneiderman’s NY state investigation more serious. I expect Mueller would turn copies of everything he has over to Schneiderman. No “president” can issue pardons for state crimes.

  107. 107.

    tobie

    @Vhh: The threat of prison is meaningless, if Manafort and Flynn know in advance that they’ll be pardoned and won’t have to do time. That’s what makes this situation so horrible. We’re slowly coming to realize that the Constitution gives far too much power to the President. If I ever hear anyone talk sanctimoniously about the founders “in their infinite wisdom,” I will scream.

  108. 108.

    Millard Filmore

    @efgoldman:

    I expect Mueller would turn copies of everything he has over to Schneiderman.

    Can you confirm that there are no ethical or legal impediments to that, prior to a command from on high to pulp all Mueller’s work?

  109. 109.

    JanieM

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I haven’t read the whole thread so maybe this has been mentioned. But this was partly filmed in Kingsville, Ohio, a few miles from where I grew up, even though the story is set in New England. I’ve seen the house they used for the fliming.

    IOW, yes, there’s a ton of potential. It has been mined before, but I’m sure they didn’t exhaust the vein. ;-)

  110. 110.

    tobie

    @efgoldman: Thanks for this:

    “I expect Mueller would turn copies of everything he has over to Schneiderman. No “president” can issue pardons for state crimes.”

    It gives me some hope.

  111. 111.

    efgoldman

    @Another Scott:

    wouldn’t be surprised if Arpaio faces lots of state and civil suits if he does accept this pardon.

    Nazi Joe is what, 88 years old? With any luck he won’t live long enough to enjoy his freedom.
    Of course, I have no idea what his family genes look like. For all we know, he’s like Anna Nicole Smith’s husband. She waited years and years for him to die, so she could claim a substantial inheritance, but he stubbornly refused.

  112. 112.

    Suzanne

    @lamh36: I am hoping he dies soon so we can finally be rid of him. He’s a monster, and one of the very few bright spots in the 2016 election is that we finally voted that fucker out of office.

  113. 113.

    Percysowner

    @Redshift: He didn’t discriminate against minorities all those years ago for the cheers. He’s a racist, white supremacist through and through.

  114. 114.

    Sab

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Of course Ohio has potential for horror. Western Reserve isn’t much different from New England, and lots of horror fiction from there. Also you’re in Appalachia. And there is a Southern element to much of Ohio. And creepy religious cults.

    ETA and our abandoned factories, and also the abandoned breweries. Plus my neighborhood is suddenly overrun by foxes.

  116. 116.

    efgoldman

    @Ruckus:

    In CA that’s called spanglish

    We didn’t call it that, but when i was a kid, my grandparents and all the other people they knew born in the old country, spoke Yidlish.

  117. 117.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Sab: whenever I’m in a hotel tool in Ohio, I always stunned by the number of bible thumper tv channels there are there. We don’t have nearly that many down here in the south.

  119. 119.

    efgoldman

    @Millard Filmore:

    Can you confirm that there are no ethical or legal impediments to that, prior to a command from on high to pulp all Mueller’s work?

    I can’t, but neither Mueller nor his team are naive or dummies. I’m sure there are multiple duplicates of everything they find, stashed in many places.

  121. 121.

    Sab

    @Steve in the ATL: Not many ways to make a living up here except exploiting the downtrodden. All our industry moved South a generation ago. Trump has us riled about Mexico and China, but it mostly went to the sunbelt.

    The remaining industry is mostly a handful of people watching robots work.

  124. 124.

    tobie

    @Omnes Omnibus: That’s the rub…they won’t exercise this power.

    I just got a taste of how awful Arizona politics are. I looked up the twitter account of the Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery (a Republican going on Neanderthal), who actually re-tweeted some crap today from Dinesh D’Souza about how George Soros stole property from Holocaust victims. Huh? The right’s found their bogey-man and they’re sticking with him. (I’m not quoting the tweet verbatim because it’s vile.)

  125. 125.

    Sab

    @Steve in the ATL: Autocorrect gotcha. What did you mean by a “hotel tool”? We don’t have that phrase up here, and I’m guessing you don’t in Atlanta either.

    Guessing tool =room?

  126. 126.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @tobie: I don’t think we can blame the Founders for the fact that modern Republicans were willing to let a adversary nation have control rather than have a fair election. Many of them (the Founders) may have been assholes, but none were 100% a dick.

  131. 131.

    jl

    He saved the best sentence for the last. There is such a thing as really real original intent that provides useful guidance for today. And this is nice example.

    “James Madison noted at the Virginia ratifying convention that abuse of the pardon power could be grounds for impeachment. He was correct then — and it’s still true now.”

  133. 133.

    Suzanne

    @tobie:

    I just got a taste of how awful Arizona politics are.

    This place is a shithole, and that fact that the national parties consider it even remotely competitive is a sign of how hard the liberals and the human rights groups have been working for a very long time.

  135. 135.

    Another Scott

    Of course, it’s even worse than I remembered…

    Jon E Hecht:

    Jon Hecht‏ @JonEHecht

    160 people hung themselves in Joe Arpaio’s jail. The lawsuits over the hangings cost Maricopa County $140 million.

    5:16 PM – 25 Aug 2017

    (via LOLGOP on Twitter)

    :-(

    We have to fight them every single day.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  138. 138.

    efgoldman

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    This is what Joe Arpaio’s presidential pardon looks like

    That language is very specific as to the case and statute for which the pardon is issued. An enterprising prosecutor might find a way to charge him for a different offense, under a different statute. Probably not, since the US Attorney is now a RWNJ appointee, right? But who knows….

    @Another Scott:

    I don’t know enough to know what it means for other attempted prosecutions or civil suits…

    IANAL, but I don’t think civil actions can be pardoned.

  140. 140.

    Olivia

    Pendejo, at it’s worst, is a púbic hair that has a dingleberry attached. I hosted 3 Mexican and 3 Spanish students in my home many years ago when I was studying Spanish and I received an extensive education in teenage colloquialisms. One described to me the beating he got from his mother when he absentmindedly called her “pendeja’ during an argument.

  141. 141.

    smintheus

    @Redshift: Asking people to lie on his behalf would make Trump himself a criminal conspirator. And if he did then pardon someone, that person would not be able to refuse to testify about whether Trump asked them to lie. Trump cannot go that route without sticking his foot in a bear trap.

    The pardon of Arpaio is Trump’s ask. It’s a train whistle so loud it can be heard by anybody who might be deciding whether to lie to the FBI investigation to save Trump’s bacon. Everyone knows what it means, but it’s hard to convince a court of that.

  142. 142.

    Another Scott

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: and @EFG: Yeah, I wasn’t clear again.

    OJ was not convicted in criminal court for the murders, but did lose the civil suits over their deaths.

    Presumably the same things holds even with a US pardon. State suits could go forward. And even US criminal suits over different charges in things outside the pardoned items.

    When I wrote that I was thinking about what happened with Ollie North – immunized testimony to Congress affected his subsequent prosecutions and allowed him to get off. I’m sure Arpaio’s lawyers will try to make the pardon cover every possible thing in the universe – I’m just curious if the various other monstrous things that Arpaio and his department did were covered to such an extent that it would be very difficult to even get an indictment from a grand jury (… ham sandwich …). Of course, civil suits can always go forward (but might be thrown out for other reasons).

    The law is amazing and important and lawyers can (and do) argue about everything even if it’s “obvious”.

    We’ll see what happens; with luck this is a minor setback in the road to Arpaio, and the people he hurt and even killed, getting sensible justice.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  143. 143.

    Aleta

    Be it known that this day I am a thieving crook who would be emperor, and that I have no clothes.

  144. 144.

    efgoldman

    @Another Scott:

    I’m sure Arpaio’s lawyers will try to make the pardon cover every possible thing in the universe – I’m just curious if the various other monstrous things that Arpaio and his department did were covered to such an extent that it would be very difficult to even get an indictment from a grand jury

    That’s why I’m surprised about how very specific the language of the pardon is. I don’t know if anyone will try, but there really does seem to be some wiggle room there for an ambitious and vengeful prosecutor.
    Meanwhile I hope the civil actions cost old Joe what’s left (after paying for a very expensive criminal defense) of his money. When he’s done, I don’t want him to have a sparrow, a coat hanger, or a cardboard box.

  146. 146.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Another Scott: Again IANAL, but it looks like the pardon is pretty specific. The first part is the “Get Out of Jail Free” card and the second part is that the judge can’t reissue his contempt citation(Chapter 21, Title 18 is contempt). Anything else would be open season on that asshole.

  155. 155.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @SiubhanDuinne: Literally, a pubic hair. Means “asshole” in Mexican Spanish, although with definite overtones of being a dumbass as well. As in: ¿Viste el pinche pendejo ese que no sabe ni estacionar su carro? Did you see that fucking asshole who can’t even park his car?

    OTOH, it can also be used affectionately as well, kind of like using “mucker” as a term of endearment. E.g. yeah, he’s a dumbass, but he’s my kind of dumbass.

  156. 156.

    Ruckus

    Something John retweeted:
    Gorka resigning in the middle of so much horrible news is like finding a $20 bill on the street before and getting hit by a bus, while picking it up.
    Fixed it for him.

  157. 157.

    Spaniel

    How does the pardon work when it comes to getting future job(s)? Can he hold a law-enforcement job with the conviction and subsequent pardon?

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