If a particular exercise of the pardon power leads to a violation of the due process clause, the pardon power must be construed to prevent such a violation.
.. But if the president can immunize his agents in this manner, the courts will effectively lose any meaningful authority to protect constitutional rights against invasion by the executive branch. This is surely not the result contemplated by those who drafted and ratified the Fifth Amendment, and surely not the result dictated by precepts of constitutional democracy. All that would remain to the courts by way of enforcement would be the possibility of civil damage awards, hardly an effective means of stopping or deterring invasions of the right to liberty.
.. It has long been recognized that the greatest threat of tyranny derives from the executive branch, where the commander in chief sits, overseeing not just the military but a vast and growing network of law enforcement and regulatory agencies. Indeed, the Articles of Confederation didn’t even provide for an executive, for fear of what dangerous power he might exercise.
.. The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of neutral judicial process before deprivation of liberty cannot function with a weaponized pardon power that enables President Trump, or any president, to circumvent judicial protections of constitutional rights.
Say No to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Mr. Trump
The Constitution gives the president nearly unlimited power to grant clemency to people convicted of federal offenses, so Mr. Trump can pardon Mr. Arpaio. But Mr. Arpaio was an elected official who defied a federal court’s order that he stop violating people’s constitutional rights. He was found in contempt of that court. By pardoning him, Mr. Trump would show his contempt for the American court system and its only means of enforcing the law, since he would be sending a message to other officials that they may flout court orders also.
.. (Both also spent years promoting the lie that President Barack Obama was born outside the United States.).. Both men built their brands by exploiting racial resentments of white Americans. While Mr. Trump was beginning his revanchist run for the White House on the backs of Mexican “rapists,” Mr. Arpaio was terrorizing brown-skinned people across southern Arizona, sweeping them up in “saturation patrols” and holding them in what he referred to as a “concentration camp” for months at a time... It was this behavior that a federal judge in 2011 found to be unconstitutional and ordered Mr. Arpaio to stop. He refused, placing himself above the law and the Constitution that he had sworn to uphold... would also go against longstanding Justice Department policy, which calls for a waiting period of at least five years before the consideration of a pardon application and some expression of regret or remorse by the applicant. Mr. Arpaio shows no sign of remorse; to the contrary, he sees himself as the victim. “If they can go after me, they can go after anyone in this country,” he told Fox News on Wednesday. He’s right — in a nation based on the rule of law, anyone who ignores a court order, or otherwise breaks the law, may be prosecuted and convicted... What’s remarkable here is that Mr. Trump is weighing mercy for a public official who did not just violate the law, but who remains proud of doing so. The law-and-order president is cheering on an unrepentant lawbreaker. Perhaps that’s because Mr. Arpaio has always represented what Mr. Trump aspires to be: a thuggish autocrat who enforces the law as he pleases, without accountability or personal consequence.
Trump Condemns Violence in Charlottesville, Saying ‘Racism Is Evil’
Several of Mr. Trump’s top advisers, including his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, pressed Mr. Trump to issue a more forceful rebuke after his comment on Saturday that the violence in Charlottesville was initiated by “many sides,” prompting nearly universal criticism.
.. As Mr. Trump was delivering the kind of statement his critics had demanded over the weekend, Fox News reported that the president is considering pardoning former Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a political ally accused of federal civil rights violations for allegedly mistreating prisoners, many of them black and Hispanic.
.. “America’s leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal,” Mr. Frazier said in a tweet announcing he was stepping down from the panel. Mr. Frazier is one of just a handful of black chief executives of a Fortune 500 company.
Less than hour later, Mr. Trump, responded on social media as he departed his golf resort in Bedminster for a day trip back to Washington.
.. Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!
.. Trump would rather attack a principled black man who was formerly on his own team than condemn white supremacy.The Donald is no longer just a white supremacist sympathizer — he’s positioned himself as their proud leader. Racist-in-Chief.Trump publicly and directly expresses disapproval over ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING that bothers him, even stuff as petty as SNL.With his insane rant this morning attacking former ally Ken Frazier, Trump is officially the Alt-Right’s attack dog.This isn’t about prescription drug prices. It’s about POTUS being insecure & disgustingly getting the validation he needs from hate groups... It’s not unusual for Mr. Trump to attack, via Twitter, any public figure who ridicules, criticizes or even mildly questions his actions. But his decision to take on Mr. Frazier, a self-made multimillionaire who rose from a modest childhood in Philadelphia to attend Harvard Law School, was extraordinary given the wide-ranging criticism he has faced from both parties for not forcefully denouncing the neo-Nazis and Klan sympathizers who rampaged in Charlottesville... “It took Trump 54 minutes to condemn Merck CEO Ken Frazier, but after several days he still has not condemned murdering white supremacists,”
Joe Arpaio learns that he is not above the law
In a trial that began Monday in federal court, Mr. Arpaio stands accused of criminal contempt of court for having thumbed his nose at a federal judge who ordered a halt to Mr. Arpaio’s traffic patrols, which singled out Hispanics on the basis of nothing more than their appearance, for immigration enforcement.
.. Lawyers for Mr. Arpaio, who is 85, have tried out an array of legal strategies in his defense, variously arguing that he did not understand the order , or that the order was ambiguous or invalid.
.. Unfortunately for the sheriff, the most damning evidence against him are the words he himself uttered
.. “I’m still gonna do what I’m doing,” Mr. Arpaio told the media in April 2012 . “I’m still gonna arrest illegal aliens.”
.. The sheriff’s insolence — an open admission that he would persist in conduct the judge had ruled was discriminatory — translated into open defiance.
.. the trial of Mr. Arpaio is the direct result of his own arrogance, and of contempt not just for a single federal judge’s order but also for the standards, norms and values of a civilized society.