Not a good person
Sherif Joe Arpaio is still in trouble. His brand of egomaniacal fascism is devouring itself all around him. After running a racist organization with guns for the last many years, sheriff
Joe pleaded guilty to basically being a racist tyrant. The fiscally conservative state of Arizona is learning that having a sheriff Joe Arpaio is
super expensive. Right now he's fighting charges that he secretly began an investigation into Judge Murray Snow, in the hopes of getting Snow kicked off of Arpaio's racial profiling case—
which didn't go well. Well, Sheriff Joe was testifying last week—turns out,
we got him all wrong.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio testified that his investigation focused on allegations that someone stole bank account information from thousands of people and that someone wiretapped his lawyers' phones.
The sheriff for metropolitan Phoenix said U.S. District Judge Murray Snow, who has dealt the toughest legal defeats in Arpaio's 22-year tenure, was a victim in the theft of bank information.
"My concern is the 150,000 people who live in Maricopa County who were victims. I don't care who they are or where they came from," Arpaio said. He was responding to questions about why the racial profiling case was mentioned in documents from the investigation.
See? He wasn't trying to dig up dirt on this Judge, a man who had not seen eye-to-eye with Sheriff Joe's constantly breaking the law. Sheriff Joe Arpaio has done what call great conservative leaders before him have done—pleaded ignorance and the excesses of his underlings.
When asked if he attended meetings where the probe was mentioned, Arpaio said he didn't recall.
Excuse me, let me clear my throat. Ahhhh coward! That's better. One of the problems big man Joey A is having is that because this Judge Snow has opened the door for poor Joe to be open to civil fines. That's money that Joe himself would lose, not the taxpayers he usually has foot his bills.
Arpaio said a confidential informant who provided the tips that led to the investigation was eventually deemed unreliable. Still, the agency's investigators continued pressing the informant for proof.
Arpaio disputed his former attorney's testimony that several sheriff's employees and lawyers thought the tips were unreliable. "I didn't hear that," the sheriff said.
The
Phoenix New Times has a nice description of how Joe appears at these hearings where he has to testify. You know, blustery Sheriff Joe. No
bullshit Joe.
There's the inevitable cold. He always seems to be under the weather when he testifies. And sure enough, after he was sworn in at 4:30 p.m. on day four of his trial, he seemed to be nursing a catarrh, his voice more gravely than normal.
[...]
Then there's the old-man shtick, where suddenly he owns every one of his 83 years on this earth and then some.
Arpaio pulled this on Young, as well, acting as if he were hard of hearing, or just auditioning for the all-geriatric version of Dumb and Dumber To.
These cartoon bullies are consistent about one thing—they are cartoonish in all walks of life. If Sheriff Joe does indeed go down, pays out some money, serves a house arrest, don't be surprised if he goes full-on pretend dementia. Maybe a harmonica and a rendition of
Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen.