President Trump pardons former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
President also accepts resignation of adviser Gorka, directs Pentagon to ban transgender people from entering military and aims sanctions at Venezuela
During a whirlwind Friday of headlines in the White House, President Donald Trump spared his ally former Sheriff Joe Arpaio a possible jail sentence by pardoning his conviction, declaring the 85-year-old lawman a “worthy candidate” for presidential intervention.
The move reversed what critics saw as a long-awaited comeuppance for an official who escaped accountability for headline-grabbing tactics during most of his 24 years as metropolitan Phoenix’s top law enforcer.
In other administration news:
• National security adviser Sebastian Gorka resigned, the latest in a series of Trump appointees to depart the White House.
• Keeping his promise on the issue, Trump officially directed the Pentagon ban transgender individuals from joining the military, but appeared to leave open the possibility of allowing some already in uniform to remain.
• Trump slapped sweeping financial sanctions on Venezuela, dramatically ratcheting up tensions between the two countries and making it harder for embattled President Nicolas Maduro to raise badly needed cash to prevent a debt default.
Arpaio eludes jail
“Throughout his time as Sheriff, (Joe) Arpaio continued his life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration,” the White House statement said.
The announcement to pardon Arpaio came three days after a rally in Phoenix at which the president signaled his willingness to absolve the misdemeanor contempt-of-court conviction. It was Trump’s first pardon as president.
“So was Sheriff Joe was convicted for doing his job?” Trump asked supporters at Tuesday’s rally. “I’ll make a prediction. I think he’s going to be just fine, OK.”
Arpaio became a nationally known political figure over the past dozen years as he took aggressive action to arrest immigrants in the country illegally. But years of legal issues and costs stemming from his immigration efforts began to take a toll on his political power at home, and he was handily defeated by a Democrat in the 2016 election.
It coincided with Trump winning the White House based in large part on his immigration rhetoric, with Arpaio campaigning for him around the country.
Trump has been plagued by poor job approval ratings that currently stand at 34 percent, the lowest mark ever for a president in his first year. His decision on Arpaio may serve to energize Trump supporters dispirited over the president’s decision a week ago to dismiss chief strategist Steve Bannon. But it has angered his opponents even more.
The pardon marked a devastating defeat for critics who believed the lawman sowed divisions by making hundreds of arrests in crackdowns that separated immigrant families and promoted a culture of cruelty by housing inmates in outdoor tents during triple-digit heat and forcing them to wear pink underwear.
They say it removed the last chance at holding Arpaio legally accountable for what they say is a long history of misconduct, including a 2013 civil verdict in which the sheriff’s officers were found to have racially profiled Latinos in his immigration patrols.
Transgender decision
Trump gave Defense Secretary Jim Mattis authority to decide the matter of openly transgender individuals already serving, and he said that until the Pentagon chief makes that decision, “no action may be taken against” them.
The Obama administration in June 2016 had changed longstanding policy, declaring that troops could serve openly as transgender individuals. And it set a July 2017 deadline for determining whether transgender people could be allowed to enter the military. Mattis delayed that to Jan. 1, 2018, and Trump has now instructed Mattis to extend it indefinitely.
But on the question of what will happen to those transgender individuals who already are serving openly - estimated to number in the low hundreds - Trump seemed to leave wiggle room for exceptions. A White House official who briefed reporters on the presidential order would not say whether Trump would permit any exceptions.
That official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said Mattis has been directed to take a number of factors into consideration in determining how to deal with transgender individuals already serving. Those factors are to include broad measures such as “military effectiveness,” budgetary constraints and “unit cohesion,” as well as other factors Mattis deems “relevant.” It was not clear whether that means it is possible for Mattis to come to the conclusion that some transgender troops should be allowed to remain.
Trump gave Mattis six months to come up with a policy on those currently serving, and he must implement it by March 23, 2018, the official said.
In a tweet last month, Trump said the federal government “will not accept or allow” transgender individuals to serve “in any capacity” in the military.
Controversial figure
Sebastian Gorka, a controversial White House staffer who served as a fiery spokesman for President Donald Trump on national security matters, abruptly left the administration on Friday as his nationalist faction was being silenced, four people briefed on Gorka’s exit confirmed.
Gorka, a deputy assistant to the president, is a close ally of former chief strategist Stephen Bannon, who departed the White
House last week. Together they saw their roles as enabling and promoting the president’s combative populism and revolutionary impulses.
Although Trump enjoyed watching his cable television appearances, in which he performed like a pit bull and taunted many news anchors for peddling what he and the president deemed “fake news,” Gorka had run afoul of many of his colleagues, including some on the National Security Council who considered him a fringe figure.
Officials said it was widely known that White House chief of staff, John Kelly, who has been restructuring the West Wing to stem infighting and chaos within the staff, was eager for Gorka to depart the administration.
While Gorka publicly released a resignation letter expressing his displeasure with the changes that he felt left his faction silenced, two White House officials insisted Gorka did not resign but rather was forced out. A third White House official said the “writing was on the wall” that Kelly wanted Gorka to leave.
Gorka’s departure spells the end of the Bannon era inside the White House, though he indicated he intended to be a potent force outside the administration.
Gorka previously worked at Breitbart News alongside Bannon, who rejoined the conservative news organization last week as executive chairman vowing to wage war against anyone - including West Wing officials - who stand in the way of Trump’s nationalist agenda.
Venezuela sanctions
The sanctions, which Trump signed by executive order, prohibit American financial institutions from providing new money to the government or the state oil company, PDVSA. They also restrict the Venezuelan oil giant’s U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, from sending dividends back to Venezuela and ban trading in two bonds the government recently issued to circumvent its increasing isolation from Western financial markets.
“Maduro may no longer take advantage of the American financial system to facilitate the wholesale looting of the Venezuelan economy at the expense of the Venezuelan people,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at the White House.
President Nicolas Maduro promised-to respond with “strength and dignity” to financial sanctions announced by the Trump administration that he said are bound to inflict hardships on the already-struggling economy.
Maduro in a short video shot from a meeting with top aides at the presidential palace said he would announce measures to combat the “blockade” in a televised appearance later Friday.
But he warned that “sacrifices” will be required to free Venezuela from the “blackmail” of the dollar and American financial system that he said are out of step with the U.S.’s diminishing role in the world economy.
Reporting from The Associated Press and The Washington Post