Wall Street Journal
By Peter Nicholas
August 28, 2017
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump defended his decision to pardon former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, calling him a “patriot” and suggesting that his predecessors granted clemency to people who were undeserving.
“Sheriff Joe is a great veteran of the military and a great law enforcement person, somebody that has won many many elections in the state of Arizona,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump also accused the Obama administration of pressing a criminal case against Mr. Arpaio in an attempt to sway voters. Mr. Arpaio, who served as sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., for 24 years, lost a reelection bid in November. Less than a month before the election, federal prosecutors announced they would move ahead with their criminal contempt case.
“I thought he was treated unbelievably unfairly when they came down with the big decision to go get him right before the voting started,” Mr. Trump said. “They just hammered him before the election. I thought that was a very unfair thing to do.”
Mr. Trump pardoned the 85-year-old former sheriff on Friday. Mr. Arpaio had been convicted last month of violating a 2011 federal court order to stop immigration raids.
He faced up to six months in jail and was to be sentenced on Oct. 5.
Mr. Arpaio told the Washington Examiner in an interview that he is considering another run for elective office—possibly the senate seat now held by Republican Jeff Flake.
Mr. Flake criticized the president for issuing the pardon, saying he would have preferred the president “honor the judicial process and let it take its course.”
As sheriff, Mr. Arpaio took a hard-line stance toward illegal immigration, using tactics that included workplace raids and traffic stops. He also gained a reputation for holding county inmates outdoors in the Arizona heat.
The pardon drew criticism from officials in both parties, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who said through a spokesman Saturday that he didn’t agree with the move and that “law-enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States.”
At the news conference, Mr. Trump pulled notes from his jacket pocket when asked about the pardon. He recounted pardons issued by presidents Biill Clinton and Barack Obama, suggesting that the recipients should not have gotten clemency.
He mentioned Mr. Obama’s decision, made several days before leaving office, to commute the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, an Army intelligence analyst who had been convicted of leaking documents to WikiLeaks.
Mr. Trump called the decision to commute Ms. Manning’s sentence “a horrible thing.”
Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com
Appeared in the August 29, 2017, print edition as ‘Trump Defends Pardon of Arizona Ex-Sheriff Arpaio.’
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