Trump defends Arpaio pardon

President Donald Trump on Monday defended his pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, calling him a patriot who was loved in Arizona.

During a joint news conference with the president of Finland, Trump said that he announced the pardon on Friday, as Hurricane Harvey approached Texas, “because I assumed the ratings would be higher than they would be normally.”

Arpaio was convicted of federal contempt of court for willfully violating an order that he stop performing certain immigration-enforcement efforts.

“He’s very strong on borders, very strong on illegal immigration,” Trump said. “He was loved in Arizona.”

As evidence, Trump cited the reaction at his rally in Phoenix last week when he mentioned Arpaio’s name.

“The place went absolutely crazy when I was in Arizona last week,” Trump said.

At that rally, Trump hinted that a pardon of Arpaio, who was an early supporter of Trump, would be forthcoming.

A poll taken in the days before the rally found only 21 percent of Arizonans in favor of an Arpaio pardon, while half opposed it. The survey of 1,065 Arizonans by Phoenix-based OH Predictive Insights found 29 percent weren’t sure or didn’t know.

The pardon drew criticism from political figures, including Republicans such as Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

“I stand by my pardon of Sheriff Joe. I think the people of Arizona who really know him best would agree with me.” PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

Trump said that the Justice Department treated Arpaio “unbelievably unfairly” by announcing it was pursuing charges during Arpaio’s re-election campaign.

“They just hammered him just before the election,” Trump said.

Arpaio lost his re-election bid to Sheriff Paul Penzone, ending a run as sheriff of Maricopa County that began in 1993.

Arpaio was accused in a civil lawsuit of violating the civil rights of Latinos during what he termed “crime-suppression sweeps” of heavily Latino neighborhoods as well as other actions. Arpaio had said repeatedly that the intent of such actions was to target people in the country illegally.

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that Arpaio’s deputies not detain anyone solely on the suspicion the person was in the country illegally. But Arpaio continued the operations, testimony showed, and admitted civil contempt for violating that order. This year, another judge found that he willfully violated the order, upping the transgression to a criminal offense.

Arpaio faced a maximum of six months in jail.

Trump also listed people who received pardons or commutations from Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He mentioned Chelsea Manning, the former soldier who spread classified documents and whom Trump called a “criminal leaker.” He also mentioned Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich on charges of tax evasion.

Trump said Arpaio would have won his 2016 re-election campaign had it not been for the criminal-contempt charges.

“I stand by my pardon of Sheriff Joe,” Trump said. “I think the people of Arizona who really know him best would agree with me.”