According to a report from state news channel Fox News, Donald Trump is “seriously considering” pardoning Crooked Joe Arpaio, who was recently convicted of criminal contempt of court for his racist and illegal campaign against Latinos and immigrants in Maricopa County as sheriff. He faces up to six months for his reign of terror. Fox says that Trump’s interview took place on Sunday, which means that Trump prioritized speaking out about a possible pardon for Arpaio over finally saying that his KKK and Nazi supporters in Charlottesville, Virginia, were bad. Clearly, “bad hombres” will always defend “bad hombres” when it comes to terrorizing people of color:
“I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio,” the president reportedly told Fox News at his club in Bedminster, N.J. “He has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration. He’s a great American patriot and I hate to see what has happened to him.”
Arpaio is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 5 and could spend up to six months in jail. Though his attorneys are planning on appealing the conviction, a presidential pardon would be the swiftest exit from the case.
Trump told the network the pardon could come as early as this week.
"Is there anyone in local law enforcement who has done more to crack down on illegal immigration than Sheriff Joe?” Trump asked the Fox reporter. “He has protected people from crimes and saved lives. He doesn’t deserve to be treated this way.”
Except more than 700 undocumented immigrants were swept up in raids and turned over to federal immigration agents during Arpaio’s terms in office, leaving more than 400 sex crimes ignored or under-investigated because he and his deputies were too busy arresting hardworking undocumented moms and dads and looking for brown drivers to pull over. In fact, “Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in U.S. history,” according to one Department of Justice expert. Now if Trump truly does pardon Arpaio on the heels of the domestic terror attack in Charlottesville, he will basically be saying that his words about white supremacists were for show and he’s fine with tolerating racist attacks on Latinos, immigrants, and other minorities.