Admin source: WH readies paperwork for Arpaio pardon https://t.co/nBzH6j5HQ3 @kaitlancollins @jasoncarrollcnn report #TheLead
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 23, 2017
.@RealSheriffJoe: "If they can go after me, they can go after anyone in this country." #Hannity https://t.co/cIFDqXeKBh pic.twitter.com/POGavxfMRA
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 24, 2017
That is literally how the law works, yes. https://t.co/jGmtA2vsbb
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 24, 2017
Q: Is Trump seeking DOJ recommendation on Arpaio pardon?@PressSec: "I would imagine they go through the thorough and standard process."
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) August 24, 2017
If they were following the “standard process,” Arpaio would have to wait five years after he was sentenced or released from confinement. https://t.co/NTbvUUgAU7
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 24, 2017
Only 21% of Arizonans support pardoning Joe Arpaio. https://t.co/rTtutf8Yl5 pic.twitter.com/ntaMsj4tIY
— Will Jordan (@williamjordann) August 23, 2017
I hope the press are pushing Ward, Flake, & Sinema to say whether they favor Trump pardoning Arpaio https://t.co/ayLubXJeyw
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 24, 2017
A Latino Republican on what Hispanic voters hear when they see Trump planning to pardon Arpaio. https://t.co/uZy50WvQXK pic.twitter.com/UN2jkFiyNw
— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) August 23, 2017
… Hispanic conservatives who spoke to BuzzFeed News this week continually made the argument that their moral and political high ground would be wiped away if Trump, by choosing to pardon Arpaio, discards the Republican refrain that they support certain policies because of the rule of law.
“A pardon of Joe Arpaio is only good if he pardons the 11 million who are here, if he shows the same grace,” said Daniel Garza, the executive director of the Koch brothers-led LIBRE Initiative. “I don’t think he deserves it, this guy violated the law to violate the rights of individuals.”
“For Trump supporters who talk negatively about amnesty, it sure seems they are OK with it when it’s one of their own,” said Ruben Alvarez, cofounder of Molera Alvarez and a 25-year Republican veteran of Arizona politics…
“For many of us, it’s deeply personal, especially us younger Latinos who started in politics protesting Arpaio, back when he was popular,” said Democratic Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego. “Activists lost jobs, were arrested, and followed home by deputies as a source of intimidation.”
Those who opposed Arpaio, Gallego said, used every legitimate process through the system to remove him, including protesting, running candidates against him, and working through the Department of Justice. “For the president to wipe that away is disheartening and leads to a sense of disempowerment,” he added.
Democratic groups and activists are already preparing to go full blast if Arpaio is pardoned. The Latino Victory Project, which works to get Hispanics elected, is rallying Latino leaders to make a forceful statement if the pardon happens, and told BuzzFeed News it will work to get state charges brought against Arpaio…
Arizona Democratic Party spokesperson Enrique Gutiérrez said some candidates are using the threat of an Arpaio pardon to recruit supporters and cast the possible pardon as one that would “empower anti-Latino and anti-immigrant groups” and “be a pardon to white supremacy.”…
Reminder, from Ryan Gabrielson at ProPublica, of “The Joe Arpaio I Knew”:
For most of Joe Arpaio’s two-plus decades as Maricopa County sheriff, he directed operations from the top floor of a downtown Phoenix tower, worlds away from the jails overseen by rank and-file deputies. The executive offices wrapped around an expansive conference room, where I spent weeks in early 2008 with banker boxes full of arrest records, and hanging out with Arpaio himself, a politician who built his career on bashing immigrants long before the rise of Donald Trump…
The sheriff’s office had spent the previous year carrying out a constitutionally dubious dragnet search for undocumented immigrants. Patrol deputies became expert at inventing pretexts for stopping the “load cars” that ferried immigrants through the county to points across the nation. Sheriffs descended on neighborhoods where day laborers waited for people willing to pay for their work. Voters repeatedly re-elected Arpaio as he carried out his pledge to transform the sheriff’s office into “a full-fledged anti-illegal immigration agency.”…
First elected in 1992 as a tough-on-crime reformer, Arpaio built his reputation on disregard for inmates. Faced with overcrowded cells, he erected the infamous “tent city,” an outdoor jail that held the convicts in U.S. Army tents from the Korean War. During Arizona summers, temperatures sweltered well above 110 degrees in the tents. Inmates were caught stealing underwear, so Arpaio had all jail underwear dyed pink in the belief that would end the black-market for briefs. Or that’s what he told the press, which produced scores of stories about the sheriff and his endeavors.
He’d been uninterested in undocumented immigrants until 2006, when he seized on rising public anger over the issue, both locally and nationally. Once Arpaio was in the battle, he was all-in. Collateral damage accumulated quickly. By 2008, numerous U.S. citizens had been wrongly arrested by Maricopa County deputies, and several filed a federal lawsuit accusing the sheriff’s office of racial profiling…
Further indication of Trump’s target audience, aka The (Very) Base:
‘Thank you for reaching the president’: Joe Arpaio credits Alex Jones for potential Trump pardon | Raw Story https://t.co/5nVDdj5vDy via
— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) August 24, 2017
Open Thread: Trump & Arpaio, Dirty Birds of A Nasty FeatherPost + Comments (72)