‘The President Speaks for Himself’

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To most people with any awareness of Arizona politics, Mr. Arpaio is an abomination to the rule of law, the principle of equal justice and plain decency.

.. abusing and humiliating them, refusing to stop even after a federal judge told him to, and arresting journalists for reporting on it all.

.. Yet to President Trump, Mr. Arpaio is a role model: a man for whom the “rule of law” means that he can do what he wants when he wants, who humiliates those weaker than him and mocks those who try to constrain him, who evades scrutiny and accountability — in short, a perfect little tyrant.

.. The Arpaio pardon is not only morally reprehensible on its own, it is also in line with Mr. Trump’s broader attitude toward law enforcement. Consider his affection for the Milwaukee County sheriff, David Clarke, an Arpaio in waiting who has called activists in the Black Lives Matter movement “terrorists” and who runs a county jail where inmates have a tendency to die under suspicious circumstances.

.. During the presidential campaign,

  • Mr. Trump endorsed the use of torture on terrorism suspects,
  • encouraged supporters at his rallies to assault protesters and
  • made racially tinged comments about a judge overseeing a case involving Trump University.

In his seven months as president, Mr. Trump has

  • attacked federal judges who ruled against the administration’s travel ban;
  • tried to impede investigations into his allies, including Mr. Arpaio;
  • and exhorted police officers to treat suspects roughly — which earned a quick rebuke from his own Justice Department and police officials around the country.

But this is Donald Trump’s rule of law — a display of personal dominance disconnected from concerns about law and order, equality or the Constitution.

What authoritarianism experts think of Trump’s decision to pardon Joe Arpaio

“In situations where democracies become right-wing regimes, the leader usually relies on paramilitary or other extremist forces to get into office or consolidate power once he’s there. He has to dance the line between expelling them and using them. Trump’s expulsion of Stephen Bannon and Seb Gorka, coming together with his open support of white nationalism and now his pardon of Joe Arpaio, shows this dynamic well.

“If the leader does not explicitly renounce the violent rhetoric and actions of extremists, they will have done their damage even if he later purges them. The result is a new culture of violence in the country, which the other armed and security forces of society must adapt to.”

.. First of all, it is very early in the presidency and, second, it is before Arpaio has been sentenced. I think the latter is a clear reflection of President Trump’s  complete disregard for the rule of law. He believes in the rule of power, in part because he has experienced throughout his lifetime that this is how U.S. justice works. However, the timing is probably, as several others have also noted, more linked to the issue that predominates President Trump’s mind: the Russia investigation. There are several key people in his former entourage who are at the point of caving to pressure to working with the [Robert S.] Mueller investigation. Trump has shown them that they have nothing to fear, because he can and will pardon them, irrespective of the circumstances. This, of course, is a fundamentally undemocratic position, but not so much informed by ideology but by naked self-interest.”

.. So I would treat Arpaio’s pardoning as a political and in particular a signaling move on Trump’s part — and a smart one. I think Trump has been very good at this — he hasn’t been able to get many things through Congress, but he has ‘compensated’ with exec orders and symbolic politics that have, for the most part, kept his base attached.”

Paul Ryan, John McCain break with Trump on Arpaio pardon

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan opposes President Trump’s pardoning of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an aide said Saturday, joining Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain in criticizing the decision.

“The speaker does not agree with this decision,” said Doug Andres, a spokesman for Ryan. “Law enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States. We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon.”

.. “The president has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law as Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions,” McCain said after the Friday pardon announcement.

.. “While no one can dispute Manning acted to undermine our country’s national security, Joe Arpaio has spent a lifetime trying to maintain it. … It is easy to discern that Arpaio is a patriot, while Manning is a traitor.”

.. The White House said Friday that the 85-year-old Arpaio was a “worthy candidate” for the pardon, citing his “life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration.”

.. Republican Gov. Doug Ducey said Arpaio should be given credit for his crime-fighting efforts and allowed to “move on” and enjoy his retirement.

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.