President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon disgraced Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio is drawing immense criticism from both sides of the aisle.
Democrats and Republicans alike have offered their condemnation of the pardon, and Harvard law professor Noah Feldman has argued that a pardon of Arpaio is an “impeachable offense.”
Yet another powerful Republican added his voice to the record: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) disagreed with the pardon through a statement from his spokesperson, Doug Andres.
Andres gave this statement:
“The Speaker does not agree with this decision. 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.”
Arpaio was awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of contempt of court. A judge ruled that he violated a court order regarding racial profiling as an Arizona sheriff, and he was scheduled to be sentenced in October.
A statement from Arpaio’s lawyer regarding the pardon said the following:
“This is why when politics tries to mix with the courts, it’s very tough. But at the end of the day here, the President did the right thing, because there should have been a jury in this case. We should have had one from day one, and at this point the appeal — in fact the sheriff is an old man, can’t forget that, he’s 85 years old. And this would be a lot more money and wasted time all around. So I would have rather seen this go to jury in the first place, and get the right verdict. But at this point, we’re dealing with a wrongful verdict.”
So… I guess the argument is that, since Arpaio is 85, he can be racist? And violate court orders? That’s some good lawyer-ing right there.
Trump’s pardoning of Arpaio should come as no surprise, but it seems likely that it will only widen the already sizable gap between Trump and leading Republicans.
However, until they actually try to do something about, Trump’s war on a functional democracy is very likely to continue. Check out MSNBC’s story on Arpaio’s pardon below:
Featured image via Flickr user Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0.
