Arpaio pardon sparks Democratic fury, GOP silence
Ex-sheriff took hard line on immigration
The New York Times
President Donald Trump’s end-of-the-week pardon of the former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, a campaign supporter who shares Mr. Trump’s hardline views on immigration, touched off a political outcry that did not abate Saturday even as much of the nation was focused on a hurricane that pummeled Texas.
Democrats condemned the president’s decision, which was made public by the White House Friday night as Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm, churned toward the Texas coast. Some Republicans praised the move, and others criticized it, but most remained silent.
Jesse Lehrich, a spokesman for Organizing for Action, the political group that grew out of former President Barack Obama’s campaigns, said the pardon “signals a disturbing tolerance for those who engage in bigotry.”
He added: “It sends an unsettling message to immigrants across the country. And it’s a repudiation of the rule of law. As a massive hurricane is hurtling toward the southern United States, the White House is focused not on saving lives, but on pardoning a man who committed unlawful acts of racial discrimination.”
The White House announced the pardon amid preparations for the storm, but the federal government said it was on top of the looming natural disaster.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona echoed Mr. Lehrich’s sentiment that Mr. Trump had sent a poor message about living by the rule of law. The state’s other Republican senator, Jeff Flake, who has been attacked by Mr. Trump and who is facing a potential primary challenge, was more muted.
“Regarding the Arpaio pardon, I would have preferred that the President honor the judicial process and let it take its course,” Mr. Flake wrote on Twitter.
U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, another Arizona Republican, said he saw it as a just end to the saga of Mr. Arpaio’s legal entanglements, which included defying a court order intended to halt racial profiling of Latinos.
Outside Arizona, most Republicans stayed quiet.
Mr. Arpaio had become a symbol of anti-immigrant sentiment, a staple of cable television for his roundups of people suspected of being in the country illegally in the heavily Latino state.
Many presidents have issued controversial pardons. Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon. Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, one of his donors, in his final days in office. By definition, pardons absolve someone of having broken the law.
But Mr. Arpaio had yet to be sentenced in his criminal case. His pardon struck a different political chord, one that led Democrats to tear into Mr. Trump.
Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist who advised the main “super PAC” supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016, suggested that Mr. Trump was offering a different type of signal — one to people who might be approached by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as possible obstruction of justice by the president when he fired the FBI director, James Comey.
“The Arpaio pardon was awful in and of itself, but I also think it was a signal to the targets of the Mueller investigation that ‘I got your back,’” Mr. Begala said on Bill Maher’s HBO program.