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DOJ to charge Joe Arpaio with criminal contempt


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It's a brave new world and we are all so completely f**ked! 

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DOJ asks for case against Arpaio to be thrown out

Sept. 11, 2017 at 8:24 PM

Sept. 11 (UPI) -- Despite public and legal opposition to President Trump's pardoning of Joe Arpaio, former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., the Department of Justice has formally endorsed the move.

On Monday, the DOJ filed court papers requesting the criminal conviction against Arpaio be negated and the case dismissed.

Because the president pardoned Arpaio before the judgement and sentencing, or before the appeals process could play out, DOJ officials said the ex-sheriff should not face legal consequences.

"The government agrees that the court should vacate all orders and dismiss the case as moot," DOJ lawyers wrote in Monday's filing.

and so on.  Full text here

The article notes that "A pair of legal advocacy groups have filed amicus briefs in the case, claiming the president's pardon of Arpaio was unconstitutional and undermines the power of the federal court system." 

The disposition of the amicus briefs will be interesting.  Hopefully the courts will say not only NO BUT HELL NO on the pardon and deal another blow to Trump. 

Edited by Howl
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John Oliver's main story last night was about Arpaio:

 

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Jennifer Rubin's take on the Arpaio issue: "Taking up the Arpaio pardon"

Spoiler

The Protect Democracy group, founded by some alumni of the Obama administration with a focus on preventing executive-branch overreach and demanding transparency and accountability, has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. district court in Arizona scheduled to hold a hearing at the beginning of next month to consider vacating former sheriff Joe Arpaio’s conviction after President Trump pardoned him.

The group reasons: “Before it may act based on the Arpaio Pardon, the Court must necessarily determine whether that pardon is valid and binding.” It lays out three arguments for challenging the pardon.

First, Protect Democracy argues:

Due process is violated if the President can eviscerate a court’s ability to ensure compliance with the law by those who wrong the rights of private parties. And as the Supreme Court has explained, “the Due Process Clause was intended to prevent government officials from abusing their power, or employing it as an instrument of oppression.” … When private litigants went to court in this district to protect their constitutional rights against Mr. Arpaio, the court issued orders to provide them relief under the law. When those orders were ignored, the courts entered an escalating series of contempts to enforce compliance with the law and ensure the protection of private parties’ constitutional rights. The Arpaio Pardon violates the Due Process Clause by limiting the protection of private rights, rendering the due process guaranteed by law an empty promise.

Here, Arpaio may argue that the ruling prohibiting the sheriff’s office from abusing the rights of suspected illegal immigrants still stands; Trump pardoned him personally only from punishment for criminal contempt.

That brings us to the second argument, namely that the pardon exceeds Trump’s pardon authority because Article II allows only for  “pardons of offenses ‘against the United States,’ not of contempt orders that arise to enforce the rights of private litigants.”

Third, Protect Democracy argues that “the Arpaio Pardon violates the separation of powers because it unconstitutionally interferes with the inherent powers of the Judicial Branch. The Supreme Court has held that the ability to issue criminal contempt orders is essential to the Article III judicial power and the administration of justice. … The Arpaio Pardon, which would blunt a court’s valid and binding exercise of judicial power to safeguard the rights of private parties, impermissibly transgresses Article III.”

These arguments never have been litigated because no president has extended the presidential pardon power in quite the way Trump did when he made common cause with a state official who refused to abide by the Constitution and by a federal court’s order. It’s the classic case of first impression. We don’t know if the court will even entertain the arguments. Although the odds are long that a district court would seek to undo a presidential pardon, the importance of the arguments should not be ignored for a couple of reasons.

For starters, the arguments outlined in the brief would be entirely proper in an article of impeachment that alleged the president abused his authority by seeking to reward an official who defied a federal court, thereby violating Trump’s oath to faithfully execute his office and enforce the Constitution. As Protect Democracy argues, “The Arpaio Pardon threatens our constitutional system for yet an additional reason: it breaches the President’s oath to protect and defend the Constitution, see Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, and his duty to faithfully execute the laws, see Article II, Section 3. The Arpaio Pardon does not faithfully execute the law; it sends a signal that public officials, so long as they are allies of the President, need not execute the law at all. The President cannot use the pardon power to invite other public officials to violate people’s constitutional rights.” The district court might not prove to be the correct forum for this argument, but it surely is the right argument to build the case as to why Trump should no longer remain president.

Moreover, the backlash in the Arpaio pardon should remind Trump and those witnesses facing a grand jury that his pardon powers are not unlimited. The brief, for example, goes out of its way to remind us that “presidents may only pardon federal offenses, not state offenses.” If Trump’s associates and family members think Trump has an unlimited “get out of jail free” card so they need only protect him to spare themselves, they may want to rethink their assumptions.

Lying to FBI officials, a congressional committee or a grand jury, for example, may be the sorts of offenses that trigger separation of powers concerns. Pardons of this type certainly would intensify impeachment talk. As such, Trump may be more hesitant to wipe the slate clean for former aides by testing the patience of courts, the special prosecutor and/or Congress. In that regard, they should look at the Arpaio case not as a hint of help but as a warning sign that they should not risk their careers and freedoms by being anything less than forthcoming and entirely truthful in their testimony.

You know, every single day, I wake up and find it hard to believe we are in the middle of this mess. I'm pretty good about compartmentalizing, but the TT and his crap spill over into everything.

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11 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Jennifer Rubin's take on the Arpaio issue: "Taking up the Arpaio pardon"

  Reveal hidden contents

The Protect Democracy group, founded by some alumni of the Obama administration with a focus on preventing executive-branch overreach and demanding transparency and accountability, has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. district court in Arizona scheduled to hold a hearing at the beginning of next month to consider vacating former sheriff Joe Arpaio’s conviction after President Trump pardoned him.

The group reasons: “Before it may act based on the Arpaio Pardon, the Court must necessarily determine whether that pardon is valid and binding.” It lays out three arguments for challenging the pardon.

First, Protect Democracy argues:

Due process is violated if the President can eviscerate a court’s ability to ensure compliance with the law by those who wrong the rights of private parties. And as the Supreme Court has explained, “the Due Process Clause was intended to prevent government officials from abusing their power, or employing it as an instrument of oppression.” … When private litigants went to court in this district to protect their constitutional rights against Mr. Arpaio, the court issued orders to provide them relief under the law. When those orders were ignored, the courts entered an escalating series of contempts to enforce compliance with the law and ensure the protection of private parties’ constitutional rights. The Arpaio Pardon violates the Due Process Clause by limiting the protection of private rights, rendering the due process guaranteed by law an empty promise.

Here, Arpaio may argue that the ruling prohibiting the sheriff’s office from abusing the rights of suspected illegal immigrants still stands; Trump pardoned him personally only from punishment for criminal contempt.

That brings us to the second argument, namely that the pardon exceeds Trump’s pardon authority because Article II allows only for  “pardons of offenses ‘against the United States,’ not of contempt orders that arise to enforce the rights of private litigants.”

Third, Protect Democracy argues that “the Arpaio Pardon violates the separation of powers because it unconstitutionally interferes with the inherent powers of the Judicial Branch. The Supreme Court has held that the ability to issue criminal contempt orders is essential to the Article III judicial power and the administration of justice. … The Arpaio Pardon, which would blunt a court’s valid and binding exercise of judicial power to safeguard the rights of private parties, impermissibly transgresses Article III.”

These arguments never have been litigated because no president has extended the presidential pardon power in quite the way Trump did when he made common cause with a state official who refused to abide by the Constitution and by a federal court’s order. It’s the classic case of first impression. We don’t know if the court will even entertain the arguments. Although the odds are long that a district court would seek to undo a presidential pardon, the importance of the arguments should not be ignored for a couple of reasons.

For starters, the arguments outlined in the brief would be entirely proper in an article of impeachment that alleged the president abused his authority by seeking to reward an official who defied a federal court, thereby violating Trump’s oath to faithfully execute his office and enforce the Constitution. As Protect Democracy argues, “The Arpaio Pardon threatens our constitutional system for yet an additional reason: it breaches the President’s oath to protect and defend the Constitution, see Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, and his duty to faithfully execute the laws, see Article II, Section 3. The Arpaio Pardon does not faithfully execute the law; it sends a signal that public officials, so long as they are allies of the President, need not execute the law at all. The President cannot use the pardon power to invite other public officials to violate people’s constitutional rights.” The district court might not prove to be the correct forum for this argument, but it surely is the right argument to build the case as to why Trump should no longer remain president.

Moreover, the backlash in the Arpaio pardon should remind Trump and those witnesses facing a grand jury that his pardon powers are not unlimited. The brief, for example, goes out of its way to remind us that “presidents may only pardon federal offenses, not state offenses.” If Trump’s associates and family members think Trump has an unlimited “get out of jail free” card so they need only protect him to spare themselves, they may want to rethink their assumptions.

Lying to FBI officials, a congressional committee or a grand jury, for example, may be the sorts of offenses that trigger separation of powers concerns. Pardons of this type certainly would intensify impeachment talk. As such, Trump may be more hesitant to wipe the slate clean for former aides by testing the patience of courts, the special prosecutor and/or Congress. In that regard, they should look at the Arpaio case not as a hint of help but as a warning sign that they should not risk their careers and freedoms by being anything less than forthcoming and entirely truthful in their testimony.

You know, every single day, I wake up and find it hard to believe we are in the middle of this mess. I'm pretty good about compartmentalizing, but the TT and his crap spill over into everything.

He's a natural disaster. Exxon Valdez, Deepwater Horizon, Katrina, Harvey and Irma all rolled into one.

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From the WaPo: "Yes, Joe Arpaio got pardoned. But a judge isn’t convinced she should toss his conviction."

Spoiler

Former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio was exuberant last month when President Trump made the controversial decision to pardon him before he was sentenced in his criminal-contempt case.

“Thank you @realdonaldtrump for seeing my conviction for what it is: a political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama justice department!” Arpaio tweeted.

But he may be in for a rude awakening. A presidential pardon does not mean a conviction automatically gets thrown out. A judge has to rule on that — and the one handling Arpaio’s federal court case has some hesitations.

In a filing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton wrote she wasn’t convinced that she could scrub the guilty verdict from Arpaio’s record. Instead, she signaled she was considering simply dropping the criminal case but letting the conviction stand — unless the government can persuade her otherwise.

Bolton found Arpaio, 85, guilty of criminal contempt of court in July after he deliberately defied another judge’s order to stop detaining people he suspected of being undocumented immigrants, a practice that violated the U.S. Constitution. Arpaio was scheduled to be sentenced in October, at which point Bolton would have entered a final judgment.

Trump’s pardon upended that. Because he made the decision before Arpaio was sentenced, no final judgment was ever rendered.

Following the pardon, Arpaio’s attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the case and vacate his conviction, which is protocol in such circumstances. Department of Justice attorneys joined them, writing in court papers this week that Trump’s pardon made the entire case moot because Arpaio “will face no consequences that result from the guilty verdict.”

But Bolton said it wasn’t that simple. Vacating the conviction didn’t seem to be an option because no judgment had been entered, she wrote in her order. On top of that, the order read, attorneys for Arpaio and the government didn’t cite any cases that supported their request to toss out the conviction, technically called a “motion for vacatur.”

In the judge’s words: “The Government appears to agree with the Defendant, but furnishes no authority conferring so broad a scope to orders of vacatur issued under similar circumstances.”

Bolton went on to quote from U.S. Supreme Court and appeals court cases suggesting that presidential pardons leave the recipient’s “underlying record of conviction” intact.

One case, Nixon v. United States (involving a judge named Walter Nixon, not President Richard Nixon) seemed to put the issue in plain terms. “The granting of a pardon is in no sense an overturning of a judgment of conviction by some other tribunal,” the excerpt read, “it is an executive action that mitigates or sets aside punishment for a crime.”

Bolton said the government hadn’t sufficiently addressed that case and others. She gave the Department of Justice until Sept. 21 to file a response as to whether she should vacate Arpaio’s conviction.

Arpaio’s hardline stance on immigration and his harsh treatment of prisoners in Arizona’s Maricopa County made him a household name and earned him scores of fans on the political right, Trump among them.

In 2011, a federal judge found that he and his deputies had racially profiled Latino drivers in traffic stops, violating their constitutional rights, and ordered him to halt the practice. When he refused, the Department of Justice filed a contempt-of-court case against him. Arpaio consistently denied that he intentionally violated the court’s order.

Bolton was unsparing toward Arpaio when she handed down her guilty verdict after a bench trial held over the summer. Arpaio showed “flagrant disregard” for the court’s command and had attempted to pin blame on his deputies, she wrote.

“Not only did Defendant abdicate responsibility,” Bolton wrote, “he announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise.”

Arpaio was scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 5 and faced up to six months in prison.

Trump announced his pardon in a Friday night statement on Aug. 25, released as Hurricane Harvey was about to make landfall in southeast Texas. The president made no mention of Arpaio’s crime but praised his military and law enforcement service.

“Throughout his time as Sheriff, Arpaio continued his life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration,” Trump said. “Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now eighty-five years old, and after more than fifty years of admirable service to our Nation, he is worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon.”

An array of civil rights organizations and legal scholars have jumped into Arpaio’s court case urging Bolton not to vacate the conviction. Several parties, including the Protect Democracy Project, have asked the judge to invalidate the pardon itself, arguing it prevented the court from protecting people’s constitutional rights. That would be an extraordinary act, as the president’s pardon power for federal offenses is explicitly granted in the Constitution.

Arpaio’s attorneys have opposed the motions.

“Our system of criminal justice is premised on lenity, and the defendant’s presumption of innocence,” they wrote in a filing Thursday. “A conviction that will never be confirmed by appeal, cannot stand.”

Gee, it sounds like the judge has a backbone.

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Great op-ed: "Trump’s pardon of Arpaio can — and should — be overturned"

Spoiler

Laurence H. Tribe is university professor and professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School. Ron Fein is the legal director of Free Speech for People, which has filed an amicus brief in the Arpaio case.

A federal judge in Arizona will soon consider whether to overturn President Trump’s pardon of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. The answer to this question has consequences not just for Arpaio and the people he hurt but also for the entire country. And although the conventional legal wisdom has been that a presidential decision to grant a pardon is unreviewable, that is wrong. In this circumstance, Trump’s decision to pardon Arpaio was unconstitutional and should be overturned.

For more than 20 years, Arpaio ran the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office with shocking cruelty and lawlessness, especially against Latinos. In 2011, a federal judge issued an injunction in a lawsuit challenging the practice of detaining and searching people for, in essence, driving while Latino. The judge found evidence that the sheriff’s office engaged in racial profiling and stopped Latinos just to determine their immigration status. He ordered it to cease detaining people without reasonable suspicion of a crime.

Arpaio flagrantly ignored the injunction, and in May 2016, the judge found him to be in civil contempt of court. In July, a second federal judge found him in criminal contempt, which can be punished by imprisonment. Three weeks later, Trump pardoned Arpaio. Trump’s Justice Department argues that is the end of the matter, but many constitutional law scholars and advocates disagree. The judge has scheduled an Oct. 4 hearing and ordered further briefing.

To understand why Trump’s pardon of Arpaio is so dangerous, step back to 1962, when a federal court ordered the all-white University of Mississippi to admit African American James Meredith. When the Mississippi governor refused to comply, the court directed the Justice Department to prosecute him for criminal contempt of court.

At the time, many anti-integration governors vowed “massive resistance” to court-ordered desegregation. The legal struggle against segregation relied on the power of court orders — enforceable by imprisonment for contempt.

Now imagine a president such as Trump pardoning the governor for contempt, while praising him, as Trump lauded Arpaio, for “doing his job.”

The message to segregationist officials would have been clear: just ignore federal court integration orders; the president will have your back if the court tries to enforce them through its contempt power.

No official could have failed to hear that message in the Arpaio pardon. Nor could have any Trump associate in possession of evidence bearing on criminal or impeachable activity by the president. The signal to them all is: You can treat any court order to testify, even with a grant of immunity, as a friendly request and politely decline. You can count on a pardon to protect you from criminal prosecution.

Is this use of the pardon power constitutional? In most cases, however controversial, courts should not second-guess the president’s use of the pardon power. But when the Constitution says that the president “shall have Power,” that does not mean unlimited power. It means power that is not inconsistent with other parts of the Constitution.

For example, the Constitution says “Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,” but that doesn’t mean Congress can tax white people at a different rate than black people. The Constitution says the president “shall have Power” to make treaties, but that doesn’t mean he can make a treaty that abolishes freedom of speech.

 The power to pardon is limited by the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that no person be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” That guarantee requires that courts must be able to issue and enforce injunctions to stop constitutional violations by government officials. Otherwise, compliance with a court order would be optional.

 In 1925, the Supreme Court upheld President Calvin Coolidge’s pardon of a speakeasy operator who had violated a court order to stop selling liquor during Prohibition. But the court has not considered a pardon for contempt since 1925. And it has never considered a pardon issued to a ranking government official for disobeying a court order to stop a systemic practice of violating individuals’ constitutional rights.

The framers suggested one solution to the prospect of such abuse. During a Virginia debate over whether to ratify the Constitution, George Mason worried that the president might “pardon crimes which were advised by himself.” James Madison replied that a president who did so could be impeached. Trump’s pardon of Arpaio should trigger congressional hearings on whether it constitutes an impeachable offense.

But it strains logic to suggest that, although a president can be removed from office for an unconstitutional pardon, the pardon itself must be judicially enforced. By pardoning Arpaio for his willful disobedience of a court order to stop violating Arizonans’ constitutional rights, Trump has pulled the republic into uncharted waters. Our best guide home is the Constitution.

 

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On 19-9-2017 at 3:56 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

But it strains logic to suggest that, although a president can be removed from office for an unconstitutional pardon, the pardon itself must be judicially enforced. By pardoning Arpaio for his willful disobedience of a court order to stop violating Arizonans’ constitutional rights, Trump has pulled the republic into uncharted waters. Our best guide home is the Constitution.

Alas, it will also take some navigators on the Hill to guide you back home. Somehow I don't think they'll take the helm and guide you back to safer waters any time soon.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm surprised there hasn't been a tweetstorm: "Federal judge refuses to erase Joe Arpaio’s conviction despite Trump pardon"

Spoiler

A federal judge on Thursday shot down former sheriff Joe Arpaio’s bid to sweep his criminal record clean.

Arpaio, the controversial former lawman in Arizona’s Maricopa County, was granted a pardon by President Trump on Aug. 25. He had been found guilty of criminal contempt of a federal court order after a five-day bench trial earlier this year and faced the possibility of up to six months in jail. After the pardon, the 85-year-old Arpaio petitioned the court to clear his record and prevent the ruling from being used in future litigation.

The case raised the novel question of how far a presidential pardon actually reaches.

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton said the pardon only freed Arpaio from possible punishment. In a four-page order offering a check on the president’s executive power, Bolton wrote that a pardon could not erase the facts of the case.

“The power to pardon is an executive prerogative of mercy, not of judicial recordkeeping,” Bolton wrote in the decision. “To vacate all rulings in this case would run afoul of this important distinction. The Court found Defendant guilty of criminal contempt.”

The president issued the pardon, and Arpaio was spared “from any punishment that might otherwise have been imposed,” the judge wrote. “It did not, however, ‘revise the historical facts’ of this case.”

Arpaio’s attorney immediately filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Arpaio’s hard-line stance on immigration and his harsh treatment of prisoners in Arizona’s Maricopa County made him a household name. Dubbed “America’s toughest sheriff,” it also earned him fans on the political right, as The Washington Post’s Derek Hawkins has written.

The former lawman’s conviction stems from his failure to comply with a 2011 court order halting the detention of individuals on the basis of their suspected immigration status. Arpaio, a vehement proponent of stronger border control, was a vocal backer of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Trump issued the pardon before Arpaio’s sentencing.

Arpaio, who was voted out of office last fall after a 24-year run, said after his pardon that he was thinking about reentering politics. “I think I’ve got a big political message to get out,” he told the Arizona Republic.

Presidential pardons typically forgive a person for a federal crime, but do not retroactively scrub the record of the crime from the court system. But the former sheriff’s attorneys argued that because of the timing, the ruling in the case should be thrown out. Although the move had no technical significance for Arpaio’s situation, his attorneys told The Washington Post in September it would be a “matter of clearing his name.”

The Department of Justice concurred, filing a brief with the court arguing that due to the pardon “the court should vacate all orders and dismiss the case as moot.”

Two groups — Free Speech for People, and the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center — filed their own motions challenging the pardon itself.

“If the President may employ his pardon power to relieve government officers of accountability and risk of penalty for defying injunctions imposed to enforce constitutional rights, that action will permanently impair the courts’ authority and ability to protect those inalienable rights,” the Free Speech for People brief argued. “The result would be an executive branch freed from the judicial scrutiny required to assure compliance with the dictates of the Bill of Rights and other constitutional safeguards.”

“We are not aware of a single case in our nation’s history where the president pardoned an elected official for disobeying a court order to stop violating constitutional rights,” Ron Fein, legal director at Free Speech for People, told the Intercept in September. “With this pardon, Trump has pushed our country into uncharted territory.”

Read the ruling

 

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11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm surprised there hasn't been a tweetstorm: "Federal judge refuses to erase Joe Arpaio’s conviction despite Trump pardon"

  Reveal hidden contents

A federal judge on Thursday shot down former sheriff Joe Arpaio’s bid to sweep his criminal record clean.

Arpaio, the controversial former lawman in Arizona’s Maricopa County, was granted a pardon by President Trump on Aug. 25. He had been found guilty of criminal contempt of a federal court order after a five-day bench trial earlier this year and faced the possibility of up to six months in jail. After the pardon, the 85-year-old Arpaio petitioned the court to clear his record and prevent the ruling from being used in future litigation.

The case raised the novel question of how far a presidential pardon actually reaches.

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton said the pardon only freed Arpaio from possible punishment. In a four-page order offering a check on the president’s executive power, Bolton wrote that a pardon could not erase the facts of the case.

“The power to pardon is an executive prerogative of mercy, not of judicial recordkeeping,” Bolton wrote in the decision. “To vacate all rulings in this case would run afoul of this important distinction. The Court found Defendant guilty of criminal contempt.”

The president issued the pardon, and Arpaio was spared “from any punishment that might otherwise have been imposed,” the judge wrote. “It did not, however, ‘revise the historical facts’ of this case.”

Arpaio’s attorney immediately filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Arpaio’s hard-line stance on immigration and his harsh treatment of prisoners in Arizona’s Maricopa County made him a household name. Dubbed “America’s toughest sheriff,” it also earned him fans on the political right, as The Washington Post’s Derek Hawkins has written.

The former lawman’s conviction stems from his failure to comply with a 2011 court order halting the detention of individuals on the basis of their suspected immigration status. Arpaio, a vehement proponent of stronger border control, was a vocal backer of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Trump issued the pardon before Arpaio’s sentencing.

Arpaio, who was voted out of office last fall after a 24-year run, said after his pardon that he was thinking about reentering politics. “I think I’ve got a big political message to get out,” he told the Arizona Republic.

Presidential pardons typically forgive a person for a federal crime, but do not retroactively scrub the record of the crime from the court system. But the former sheriff’s attorneys argued that because of the timing, the ruling in the case should be thrown out. Although the move had no technical significance for Arpaio’s situation, his attorneys told The Washington Post in September it would be a “matter of clearing his name.”

The Department of Justice concurred, filing a brief with the court arguing that due to the pardon “the court should vacate all orders and dismiss the case as moot.”

Two groups — Free Speech for People, and the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center — filed their own motions challenging the pardon itself.

“If the President may employ his pardon power to relieve government officers of accountability and risk of penalty for defying injunctions imposed to enforce constitutional rights, that action will permanently impair the courts’ authority and ability to protect those inalienable rights,” the Free Speech for People brief argued. “The result would be an executive branch freed from the judicial scrutiny required to assure compliance with the dictates of the Bill of Rights and other constitutional safeguards.”

“We are not aware of a single case in our nation’s history where the president pardoned an elected official for disobeying a court order to stop violating constitutional rights,” Ron Fein, legal director at Free Speech for People, told the Intercept in September. “With this pardon, Trump has pushed our country into uncharted territory.”

Read the ruling

 

Oh, at this point he's like "Joe who?" Lots of water under the bridge and bad decisions since that bad decision. I expect him to start claiming he actually can't remember things he did last month any minute. And I would believe he can't remember. He very likely has some mental or physiological disease that is causing him to spiral down.

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24 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

Oh, at this point he's like "Joe who?" Lots of water under the bridge and bad decisions since that bad decision. I expect him to start claiming he actually can't remember things he did last month any minute. And I would believe he can't remember. He very likely has some mental or physiological disease that is causing him to spiral down.

I know, right?  It's like promising to send $$$$ to the grieving Gold Star dad:  "Oh yeah, sure, I'll send you $$$$", and then IMMEDIATELY forgot.  

It's impossible to keep up.  Exhausted talking heads are complaining about the still rapid-fire rate of malfeasance from Trumplandia and I don't think this will slow down for even one minute over the coming years. 

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry for the shouting, but OH FUCK NO: "Sheriff Joe Arpaio Not Interested in Trent Franks’ Seat—but ‘Seriously, Seriously, Seriously’ Considering the U.S. Senate"

Spoiler

Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has no interest in running for Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-AZ) soon-to-be vacated seat, he said on Thursday. Instead, the controversial lawman, who was recently pardoned by President Donald Trump, has his sights on a higher office.

“I am seriously, seriously, seriously considering running for the U.S. Senate,” Arpaio told The Daily Beast, “not the congressman’s seat.”

Whatever he decides, Arpaio’s next political step will have profound implications in the Grand Canyon State. He is a darling of anti-immigration hardliners, but reviled by Democrats and even some mainstream Republicans for his reputation of breaking the law to enforce it.

On Thursday, a spot opened him to run for the House of Representatives. Franks, who represents Arizona’s 8th congressional district, announced his intent to resign from his seat following reports that he had approached two female staffers about the possibility of serving as gestational surrogates for him and his wife. The House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into whether Franks “engaged in conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment.”

Reached by The Daily Beast while grocery shopping, Arpaio said he had not yet heard of Franks’ impending resignation.

“He is a great man, and a great friend, and it’s a great loss for Arizona and our country,” said Arpaio, after being informed of the news. But Arpaio, a former six-term county sheriff, dismissed the possibility of running to replace Franks, noting that he did not reside in the Arizona 8th congressional district.

When The Daily Beast pointed out that the U.S. Constitution specifies that members of the House of Representatives merely be residents of their state, not their specific district, Arpaio said that it was not Franks’ seat, but retiring Sen. Jeff Flake’s, that has caught his eye.

“No, I would not consider it, but I am considering running for the Senate, Flake’s seat,” Arpaio told The Daily Beast while buying a half-pound of meat at the deli counter. “I feel like I just gave you a little scoop there.”

Arpaio is an outsize—and divisive—figure in modern Arizona politics. Serving for nearly a quarter century as the sheriff of the state’s largest county, he styled himself as “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” He was a staunch opponent of illegal immigration who, himself, was accused of numerous crimes. During his tenure, which ended with his defeat to a Democratic rival in 2016, Arpaio was accused of abuse of power, unconstitutional jail conditions at his infamous “Tent City” outdoor jail, and criminal contempt of court for his refusal to stop detaining Latinos based on the belief they were in the U.S. illegally.

Following his conviction on this last charge, Arpaio received a presidential pardon from Trump in a primetime ceremony as Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas coast.

“Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now 85 years old, and after more than 50 years of admirable service to our nation, he is worthy candidate for a presidential pardon,” the White House said at the time.

Arizona Democrats have pointed to his landmark defeat in 2016—Arpaio lost to Democratic challenger Paul Penzone by more than 12 points—as evidence that they would have little to worry about if the former sheriff entered the crowded race for Flake’s seat.

“Bring him on. He lost in 2016. We can defeat him in 2018,” Ann Heitland, communications chair of the Coconino County Democratic Party, which encompasses Flagstaff, told The Daily Beast in August.

Should Arpaio enter the field, it could very well split the Trump political orbit. Kelli Ward, a former state senator, is already preparing a run. And she has the backing of a pro-Trump Super PAC as well as the Mercer family, which is closely associated with Trump political adviser Steve Bannon.

But Arpaio is undeterred.

“I’ve beat ’em six times before,” Arpaio said.

Okay, so if he won, there would be a serial harasser in the WH, a child molester (assuming Moore wins) and a criminal racist in the senate, what would be next? Jeffrey Dahmer to replace Sessions as Attorney General?

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2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Sorry for the shouting, but OH FUCK NO: "Sheriff Joe Arpaio Not Interested in Trent Franks’ Seat—but ‘Seriously, Seriously, Seriously’ Considering the U.S. Senate"

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Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has no interest in running for Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-AZ) soon-to-be vacated seat, he said on Thursday. Instead, the controversial lawman, who was recently pardoned by President Donald Trump, has his sights on a higher office.

“I am seriously, seriously, seriously considering running for the U.S. Senate,” Arpaio told The Daily Beast, “not the congressman’s seat.”

Whatever he decides, Arpaio’s next political step will have profound implications in the Grand Canyon State. He is a darling of anti-immigration hardliners, but reviled by Democrats and even some mainstream Republicans for his reputation of breaking the law to enforce it.

On Thursday, a spot opened him to run for the House of Representatives. Franks, who represents Arizona’s 8th congressional district, announced his intent to resign from his seat following reports that he had approached two female staffers about the possibility of serving as gestational surrogates for him and his wife. The House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into whether Franks “engaged in conduct that constitutes sexual harassment and/or retaliation for opposing sexual harassment.”

Reached by The Daily Beast while grocery shopping, Arpaio said he had not yet heard of Franks’ impending resignation.

“He is a great man, and a great friend, and it’s a great loss for Arizona and our country,” said Arpaio, after being informed of the news. But Arpaio, a former six-term county sheriff, dismissed the possibility of running to replace Franks, noting that he did not reside in the Arizona 8th congressional district.

When The Daily Beast pointed out that the U.S. Constitution specifies that members of the House of Representatives merely be residents of their state, not their specific district, Arpaio said that it was not Franks’ seat, but retiring Sen. Jeff Flake’s, that has caught his eye.

“No, I would not consider it, but I am considering running for the Senate, Flake’s seat,” Arpaio told The Daily Beast while buying a half-pound of meat at the deli counter. “I feel like I just gave you a little scoop there.”

Arpaio is an outsize—and divisive—figure in modern Arizona politics. Serving for nearly a quarter century as the sheriff of the state’s largest county, he styled himself as “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” He was a staunch opponent of illegal immigration who, himself, was accused of numerous crimes. During his tenure, which ended with his defeat to a Democratic rival in 2016, Arpaio was accused of abuse of power, unconstitutional jail conditions at his infamous “Tent City” outdoor jail, and criminal contempt of court for his refusal to stop detaining Latinos based on the belief they were in the U.S. illegally.

Following his conviction on this last charge, Arpaio received a presidential pardon from Trump in a primetime ceremony as Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas coast.

“Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now 85 years old, and after more than 50 years of admirable service to our nation, he is worthy candidate for a presidential pardon,” the White House said at the time.

Arizona Democrats have pointed to his landmark defeat in 2016—Arpaio lost to Democratic challenger Paul Penzone by more than 12 points—as evidence that they would have little to worry about if the former sheriff entered the crowded race for Flake’s seat.

“Bring him on. He lost in 2016. We can defeat him in 2018,” Ann Heitland, communications chair of the Coconino County Democratic Party, which encompasses Flagstaff, told The Daily Beast in August.

Should Arpaio enter the field, it could very well split the Trump political orbit. Kelli Ward, a former state senator, is already preparing a run. And she has the backing of a pro-Trump Super PAC as well as the Mercer family, which is closely associated with Trump political adviser Steve Bannon.

But Arpaio is undeterred.

“I’ve beat ’em six times before,” Arpaio said.

Okay, so if he won, there would be a serial harasser in the WH, a child molester (assuming Moore wins) and a criminal racist in the senate, what would be next? Jeffrey Dahmer to replace Sessions as Attorney General?

I really don't think the people of Arizona would be okay with that.

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4 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

I really don't think the people of Arizona would be okay with that.

Sadly, it seems at least the core BTs, who have taken over the Repug party, would have no problem. I'm sure Agent Orange would be thrilled to campaign for him.

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2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Sadly, it seems at least the core BTs, who have taken over the Repug party, would have no problem. I'm sure Agent Orange would be thrilled to campaign for him.

Yeah, but the people in Arizona are a bit more, well, actually less in love with a false god. Not as poor, many not native to the area with generations of the same "religious" brainwashing. I think we're will start seeing a divide, with those who are "Republicans over anything" on one side and actual thinking people saying "enough" on the other. Remember, these are the people who convicted Arpaio, then Dumpy overrode their conviction. And he insulted both of their Senators, one very beloved. His endorsement might not go over well there.

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  • 1 month later...

I was just wandering over to mention that. I want to believe that he won’t be elected, but then I thought the American people weren’t so stupid as to elect Donald fucking Trump, more fool me.

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I have a feeling AZ may have moved on from Sheriff Joe, but ya never know.  Hope he gets nuked in the primaries. 

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10 minutes ago, JMarie said:

So it's Sheriff Joe vs. Dr. Kelli Ward in the primary?  {inhaling sharply} Oh boy....

I see popcorn sales rising sharply. :popcorn:

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11 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Good. I've said it before, I don't think the majority of the people of Arizona want this pompous ass to represent them. I hope the three of them tear each other apart in the primary, exposing all the dirt that's there. Dumpy will of course endorse Criminal Joe, which is great because it's worked so well in the past.

All that's needed is a competent, sane Democrat with reasonable ideas about immigration and the road map that Repubs will supply to reduced Social Security and higher Medicare rates. What could go wrong for the Repubs?

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In a interview yesterday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) didn't think much of Sheriff Joe's plans to run.  He thinks Arpaio is blowing smoke and may not even make the primaries. 

From a long distance away, AZ seems like a crazy place, but it does have quite a few full time and part time retirees.  You do not want to fuck with MediCare and Social Security with these people (MY people). 

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16 hours ago, GrumpyGran said:

What could go wrong for the Repubs?

An endorsement by the presidunce... 

:562479b0cbc9f_whistle1:

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23 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

An endorsement by the presidunce... 

:562479b0cbc9f_whistle1:

Luna says she hates you because you just cracked up her mommy so much that it ruined her lap comfort. OMFG LOL. 

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1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

An endorsement by the presidunce... 

:562479b0cbc9f_whistle1:

If the Trump kisses you on both cheeks, don't get in the row boat.

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Paraphrased: 

-If you don't like my jail too bad, don't break the law. The judge was so unfair to me.

-Too bad, you broke the law.

-I didn't break the law, it was a misdemeanor and we're appealing.

-You admitted you broke the law when you accepted the pardon.

-I'm not a lawyer, I don't know

-Here is Supreme Court saying it, I believe they're lawyers there.

-I'm not going to get into that.

-Okay so what do you think of this insanely racist thing Trump said?

-How do you know you said it and if he said it I'm not gonna comment what presidents say.

-If you're going to be a senator it's going to be your job to keep tabs on the president.

-I'm not a senator now.

-You're running. What's your position on this?

-I don't have a position but my position is that everybody says racist stuff and if the president said racist stuff I'm always gonna support him.

Edited by AmazonGrace
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