Sheriff Joe Arpaio Pardoned

Scofflaws are welcome, as long as they're in the ever-shrinking pool of Trump supporters.  Doesn't matter if your crimes are against the constitution.  Doesn't matter if the judicial branch has determined your guilt.

MSNBC sees this as a dry run for Trump's pardon power in the upcoming Russian indictments.

No doubt correct.

Interesting point raised by some commenters on Facebook. Asking for and accepting a presidential pardon involves an admission of guilt. So Arpaio immediately becomes liable for all the people he wrongly imprisoned - they can go after him in civil court. Also, since there is no danger of self-incrimination, he can no longer plead the 5th - prosecutors can force him to testify against his accomplices. Interesting stuff.

richard09 wrote:

Asking for and accepting a presidential pardon involves an admission of guilt.

I'm not sure if that is accurate. In this article, according to a statement by Deputy Attorney General Charles B. Renfrew, a former Federal judge serving in the Carter Justice Department,  no application for a Presidential pardon would be passed on by the Justice Department to the White House unless the petitioner formally acknowledged guilt.

In the case of Arpaio - according to some reports I heard - there was no application from the Justice Department; the normal processes were not followed. So Arpaio may not have make any admission of guilt. But I believe he may still be prevented from taking the fifth in civil cases.

Consider the pardon of Nixon: he had not been charged or convicted of anything before being pardoned, so there had been no admission of guilt in that case.

Arpaio never disputed the charges against him. He was PROUD of targeting people of Hispanic heritage, he never said he didn't.

And again, this National Enquirer president likes to cause liberal outrage -- he lives for it -- because it distracts from his very real problems with Russian collusion and the spates of dirty work going on behind the scenes that doesn't get covered in the wake of liberal apoplexy.

_Howard wrote:

Consider the pardon of Nixon: he had not been charged or convicted of anything before being pardoned, so there had been no admission of guilt in that case.

I DO consider the pardon of Richard Nixon.

I consider it the beginning of the end of democracy in America. By formally putting the office above the law, Ford opened the door for rampant lawlessness in following administrations. By failing to allow the Judicial, one-third of our tri-parte democracy, to pass judgment on the Executive, he weakened the 3-legged stool that had stood firm for 196 years. By ignoring public opinion -- people wanted Nixon's head, for lying to the press, for lying during his re-election campaign, and for lying about Viet Nam -- Ford pissed off and disenfranchised a whole generation of voters.

If he had allowed Tricky Dick to be tried, he would have been convicted. If he'd been convicted, he would've served time. If he'd served time, presidential candidates in the future would've been "on notice" that nobody is above the law.

Therefore no Iran Contra. No USS Vincennes. No Operation Restore Hope. No Whitewater investigation. No Operation Enduring Freedom, No black sites. No extraordinary rendition. etc etc etc (this is getting too depressing...)

_Howard wrote:

Consider the pardon of Nixon: he had not been charged or convicted of anything before being pardoned, so there had been no admission of guilt in that case.

If he wasn't guilty of anything, there was nothing to pardon. Therefore, accepting the pardon is an admission that there was something that needed to be pardoned. That is, it was an admission of guilt.

I admit, being simple logic and common sense, that may not stand up in an American court of law.

My remark about Nixon was only to show that one needn't be convicted and subsequently admit guilt in order to be considered for and receive a presidential pardon. I think the pardon of Nixon was disgusting.

Did Ford actually pardon Nixon, or just close all the congressional investigations of him? I know at the time he said the country needed to move on, to put Watergate behind us, and to focus on solving the problems in front of us.

It was bullshit then; it's bullshit now.

And if it was really a pardon, it's a template for retroactive immunity granted by Trump on everybody in his little circle of friends.

This is nice.

Robert Mueller just undercut Trump’s use of the pardon power

Joe Arpaio Found Out He Admitted Guilt With Trump Pardon On Live TV

He is indeed trying to claim that he didn't admit guilt by accepting the pardon, but he may not be able to get away with it.

Are there any restrictions on convicted felons serving in the Senate?

Apparently not. Why am I not surprised.

Arpaio can't even get his old job back. I hope he has financial hardship.