The announcement of the pardon of former Sheriff Joseph Arpaio on a Friday night — the time usually reserved for getting out bad news — suggests that some people at the White House might have been embarrassed by it. If so, they were correct.
…….
But that past doesn’t make Trump’s pardon any less objectionable. Trump acted for the benefit of a political crony, just like Clinton. He did it — just like Clinton — outside the Justice Department’s pardon process. While presidents have the authority to go around DOJ, the regular process is in place to ensure that presidents make fully informed pardon decisions. To short-circuit the standard procedure is to consciously avoid facts that might show that clemency is unwarranted.
In this case, the facts are that Sheriff Arpaio repeatedly flouted court orders and detained aliens on suspicion of being in the United States illegally, which is not a crime under federal law (it’s a civil offense).
Even if one believes it should be a crime, Congress has not criminalized it. Even if, moreover, one believes that the states should have the sovereign authority to criminalize trespass by aliens in the country unlawfully, the federal courts have thwarted them. Law officers are bound to enforce the law as it exists, not the law as they would have it. Furthermore, if law officers believe court orders are incorrect, their remedy is to challenge them through these constitutional procedures, not to flout them. The rule of law depends on it.
It must be stressed that the president has the power to commute sentences while leaving convictions in place. If Trump believed that the 85-year-old Arpaio’s age, honorable military service, and long law-enforcement career militated in favor of clemency, he could have set aside any federal sentence imposed on the former sheriff. To the contrary, Trump’s issuance of a full pardon effectively endorses Arpaio’s misconduct.
………
If the president had stayed his hand and let the legal process work, it is possible that there’d have been no need to consider a pardon. Instead, Trump’s pardon is so premature that Arpaio was not even eligible under Justice Department guidelines to petition for a pardon. Furthermore, if Arpaio was wrongfully convicted, as his lawyers and allies maintain, the judicial system has been denied the opportunity to reverse the result. While the pardon formally forgives the sheriff’s lawlessness, the legal proceeding to this point will remain (another) mark against him.
Arpaio is a hero to the populist Right, but his theatrical, inhumane imprisonment policies, ham-fisted immigration enforcement, and all-around witless showmanship had become so toxic that he got soundly thrashed in his latest reelection bid in a Trump-friendly county. No one serious about immigration restriction should want Arpaio to be the poster boy for the cause, but that is clearly what Trump considers him, and his pardon makes the point rather emphatically. Better than dumping this pardon on a Friday night would have been never granting it at all.
- Discussion
-
NR’s editors on the pardon of Joe Arpaio: https://t.co/lpHhKgovdg
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) August 28, 2017
Things have not been going well for Trump lately. He needed to throw some more red meat at his supporters and Sheriff Joe fit the bill. I don’t think Trump really cares one whit about Joe otherwise. Joe was a useful idiot for Trump to use to his advantage.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.