Trump Pardons Arpaio: America Sinks Lower

After outraging decency with his putrid rant about Charlottesville, welcomed by white supremacist Neo-Nazis, Trump compounded it by pardoning former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Arpaio was a vicious man, perverting law enforcement and rule of law by illegally targeting and terrorizing people he didn’t like ethnically. Subjecting them to literal and intentional torture during often unauthorized confinement, out in blazing desert sun. Finally voters had enough of this and threw him out. Then he was convicted in federal court for having ignored judicial orders that he stop his illegal tactics. He was awaiting sentence.

And now Trump pardons him. Why? Because Arpaio stands for hostility toward immigrants and brown-skinned people. Trump stands with that.

True, the President has the power to pardon. But this is a flagrant abuse of power, flouting every norm of proper presidential conduct. Our government has developed rules and procedures and criteria for appropriate exercise of the pardon power. Pardons are normally granted only after Justice Department review, not less than five years after conviction, and only where there is some good and valid reason for a pardon, either to advance the cause of justice or the person has proven himself or herself worthy. Trump disregarded all of that. This pardon has no legitimate excuse; the reason for it stinks to high Heaven. The Mayor of Phoenix called it “a slap in the face to the people of Maricopa County,” many of whom suffered from Arpaio’s misdeeds. The pardon sticks Trump’s thumb in the eye of his own government, whose prosecutors had the courage to properly do their jobs by holding to account this lawless creep of a sheriff; and the judges and juries that likewise did their civic duty. Trump’s action, undoing all of theirs, savages the rule of law.
That even 35% of Americans still support such depravity makes me weep for my country. How low can America sink?
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