Trump pardoning Arpaio would be civic arson
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The San Diego Union-Tribune (TNS)
The following editorial appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune on Friday, Aug. 25:
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President Donald Trump put a blot on his reputation that may never fade with the appalling impromptu news conference last week in which he declared a lot of “very fine people” participated in a white supremacist, anti-Semitic protest replete with Nazi imagery in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12. Trump’s subsequent scripted indirect-apology speeches were welcome. Still, they seemed hollow, given the vim of his off-script vilification of media critics for their decrying the moral vacuum displayed by his “fine people” comments.
But now Trump may build on his image as a president who stokes racial and ethnic tensions by pardoning Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix and has 4.2 million people – about 60 percent of the state’s population. In July, Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt of court for defying a federal judge’s 2011 order that his Sheriff’s Department end its unconstitutional policy of targeting Latinos – without probable cause – with warrantless traffic stops and detention. Trump’s past remarks about a pardon seemed more like a trial balloon than anything else – until CNN’s report Wednesday that the Arpaio paperwork was complete and ready to go.
Arpaio’s hardline tactics in fighting illegal immigration – and, arguably, his eager promotion of Obama birtherism – made him a tea party and Fox News favorite. Some on the right may not mind a sheriff who engaged in unconstitutional racial profiling; who is proud that temperatures routinely top 120 degrees every summer in his tent jail; who goes after humans being smuggled instead of their smugglers and who arrests unauthorized immigrants at factories and farms but not their employers.
But those who are able to rationalize this away and who actually care about democratic norms should be appalled with the grotesque ways Arpaio used his power to bully and abuse his critics. Two county supervisors won nearly $4.5 million dollars in settlements over bogus charges orchestrated by Arpaio’s aides and allies. The Phoenix New Times CEO and top editor won a $3.75 million settlement after being arrested on bogus charges that followed critical coverage of the sheriff.
Last November, Maricopa County voters had had enough. After 24 years, Arpaio was easily defeated in his bid for a seventh term by political unknown Paul Penzone, a retired Phoenix police sergeant.
The Trump administration wastes a ridiculous amount of time putting out fires caused by a president who likes to say what’s on his mind and then reflexively defend his remarks and trash his critics. This leads to a political cycle in which Trump defenders often say journalists have chosen to look at Trump’s comments in the worst possible light, making pugnacity seem a manifestation of evil.
But pardons of people found guilty of federal crimes are in a different category than ill-chosen remarks. Arpaio is not a valiant retired law-enforcement officer who may have made a few mistakes but deserves a break. He was a tyrant with a badge who abused his power to torment his critics – and a lawman who targeted an entire ethnic group despite an explicit order from a federal judge to stop doing so because it was unconstitutional. If the president uses his power to free such a criminal from the consequences of his actions, it will be an act of civic arson – one that’s even worse than his remarks about the Charlottesville tragedy.
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)2017 The San Diego Union-Tribune
Visit The San Diego Union-Tribune at www.sandiegouniontribune.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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AP-WF-08-25-17 0835GMT