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Conservatives Shouldn’t Look Up to Joe Arpaio
Joe Arpaio was my sheriff for 23 years. His predecessors were ineffective and mildly corrupt, so Maricopa County voters embraced the tough-talking, no-nonsense lawman. And he started out pretty well. Sure, there was the shticky pink underwear, tent city, and constant media stunts, but it finally seemed like a dedicated sheriff was at the helm.
But power tends to corrupt. Arpaio started focusing more on media appearances than law enforcement. Scandals started popping up. The headline-grabbing antics got more bizarre. And a man who seemed to many like a conservative stalwart devolved into anything but. I wrote about the ex-sheriff for Monday’s USA Today. Here’s a preview:
During one three-year period, his Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office didn’t properly investigate more than 400 alleged sex crimes, many of them involving child molestation.
In all, the department improperly cleared as many as 75% of cases without arrest or investigation, a fact outlined in a scathing report by the conservative Goldwater Institute.
When local journalists delved into Arpaio’s dealings, he had them arrested, a move that ultimately cost taxpayers $3.75 million. We paid $3.5 million more after the sheriff wrongfully arrested a county supervisor who had been critical of him.
About the same time, Arpaio sought charges against another supervisor, a county board member, the school superintendent, four Superior Court Judges and several county employees. All of these were cleared by the courts and also resulted in hefty taxpayer-funded settlements for his targets.
As a U.S. District Court judge presided over a civil contempt hearing, Arpaio’s attorney hired a private detective to investigate the judge’s wife.
On the pretext of going after an alleged cache of illegal weapons, a Maricopa SWAT team burned down an upscale suburban Phoenix home and killed the occupants’ 10-month-old dog. There were no illegal arms, so they arrested the resident on traffic citations.
Arpaio’s staff concocted an imaginary assassination attempt on the sheriff, presumably for news coverage. Taxpayers had to pay the framed defendant $1.1 million after he was found not guilty.
The sheriff’s department misspent $100 million on the sheriff’s pet projects, and wasted up to $200 million in taxpayer money on lawsuits. Yet he still found money to send a deputy to Hawaii to look for President Obama’s birth certificate.
I would have included more examples, but for the strict word limit. Still, this should give conservatives around the nation a better idea of Arpaio’s actual record, instead of the character they see in the media.
I was similarly harsh on the local NBC affiliate’s public affairs show this morning:
The purpose of my article and interview was to correct the record on who Arpaio actually is. He was an authoritarian who routinely used his office to punish legal citizens, repeatedly violate constitutional restrictions, and mock the very concept of limited government.
Perhaps even worse, illegal immigration and the crime rate in Maricopa County remained commensurate with all the surrounding counties. His image as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” did nothing to better protect our borders or stop criminals from plying their trade.
Sheriff Joe was never a conservative; he just played one on TV.
Published in Law, Policing, Politics
But I hope you took me literally.
This analogy presumes Arpaio wasn’t guilty – he was clearly guilty of the criminal contempt. He bragged about it on national tv!
Evan McMullin: “The President’s pardon of Arpaio is a signal to his nativist and lawless fellow travelers, a bad combination.”
The real conservative has spoken!
The Democrats and the GOPe (but I repeat myself) are guilty of not enforcing our immigration laws, benefitting foreign interests to the detriment of law-abiding Americans. When are they being taken to court?
I will take Joe Arpaio over that corrupt circus any day.
Is there any lawlessness or thuggery you will not countenance in the name of slightly better border enforcement?
I know what a nativist is because I read the Wall Street Journal editorial page. It’s bad if you’re for cheap labor. But what’s a “lawless fellow traveler”? Is Evan channeling Tailgunner Joe now?
These guys, I reckon.
I see that “The Conservatarians” have a podcast titled “Pardon the Corruption” — haven’t listened to it but you seem to have a point here. Is there a move to pardon Arpaio’s “corruption” as outlined in this article? Best I can see is that the corruption is about the railroading of Arpaio but I doubt that’s what they were talking about. Glad to be disabused but put me down as suspicious.
The case you make against Arpaio sounds pretty strong and it makes one wonder that an effort was never made to replace him as sheriff years ago.
At the same time I understand people taking offense at the political motivation behind his conviction. Even if technically valid, it smells like a hit job. The result is to make Arpaio a sympathetic figure, even if we should view him more skeptically.
It was a cunning move by Trump to pardon him, thus taking advantage of the left’s unforced error. That will play well for him, regardless of what Arpaio may truly deserve.
Do you agree that this is the right use of the pardoning power of the president? At least to the extent that you can consider it a hit job? Arpaio has become a lightning rod for the illegal immigration debate.
BTW, I would like to hear the other side of what Jon brings up here before I come to some resolution. I’m also a little worried that the article was published in USA Today. Are they fair with regard to immigration and conservative issues in general?
Edit: regarding USA Today — not a comment about Jon writing for them nor a criticism in any way.
I’m glad you didn’t say that Trump shouldn’t have pardoned him, although it would have been even better if you had praised Trump for the pardon. I haven’t heard any conservatives say they look up to him, so you’re probably safe on that score.
In and of itself, no. Pardoning someone merely as a political manouver is not a desirable use of the President’s pardoning power. It is, however, a two-fer if based on other criteria. In this case, the issue is the (perceived) political motivation for “getting” Arpaio.
That the judicial process had not even reached its conclusions points to this pardon being one of political expediency and not correcting an injustice. The man hadn’t even been sentenced yet and Trump used the sentence as reasoning behind the pardon. What?
Are we going to start reviewing everybody’s lives at 85, and if they are found wanting in any respect, then a judge can peremptorily lock them up without a jury’s advice? Have we come to this?
Many things give me pause, but the primary one is the heavy hand of the judiciary. Trump should pardon Libby and many others like him.
The corrupt federal judiciary must be brought to heel. Arpaio’s pardon is but a first step.
I think President Trump should pardon Hillary.
Jamie, why are libertarians and conservatarians so willing to roll over on this one? Because it involves immigration enforcement? We probably agree that Prigg, despite its dire consequences for the parties involved, was good law. States shouldn’t be forced to cooperate with federal law enforcement actions.
But where in limited government/states rights/federalist theory is the compelling argument that states cannot choose to enforce federal laws in their local jurisdictions?
Not in the Federal code, where local law enforcement arrest power for immigration violations — including illegal presence — is explicitly authorized repeatedly.
But it’s illegal immigration, so law and theory and consistency don’t apply?
Nothing at all.
No, because that’s not what happened. He defied a court order, and therefore was found in contempt of court. That’s how the courts have worked for hundreds of years.
Libby is in a totally different moral universe than Arpaio. Pretty much the only thing the two men have in common is membership in the Republican Party.
So, winning elections is exculpatory? Interesting.
Excuse me? When the crime to be pardoned is purely political, how can the pardon not be? Whatever Arpaio’s other flaws may be, the court order Arpaio defied was blatantly political and the contempt citation unjust. The pardon reversed an unjust, political conviction. The litany from @exjon of Arpaio’s failings at the state level are not relevant to this pardon. Just venting at a man @exjon despises.
Help me understand. Who exactly is the “power” in this convoluted metaphor?
Michael, I agree with this. This is how I see it, too.
(Thanks, Phil.)
No but maybe if you’re going to look up to a man with a specific job you should asses if he actually did that job correctly.
He declined to persue the investigation so there’s no effective difference.
Roll over on what? An authoritarian thug who abused government power to his own benefit and was more interested in media attention than doing his job effectively?
The pardon of Sheriff Joe is not really an issue for me. In my opinion it would have been better if the President’s statement had attributed the pardon to his age, and left it at that.
He won elections because he talked tough on immigration and there was frustration in Arizona over the lack of immigration enforcement by the Obama administration. One can point out that he had support at the polls, so did President Obama. All that means is you can fool people on either side of the political spectrum.
President Obama was vindictive, and used his office to punish those that disagreed with him, as did Sheriff Joe. Both men practiced identity politics. Those traits don’t become a virtue based upon the user, or their politics.
Sheriff Joe should take his pardon and retire gracefully into private life. Sean Hannity and President Trump should stop singing his praises as the greatest law enforcement officer to come down the road. His record does not support that assertion. They are not doing Sheriff Joe any favors, they are inviting more scrutiny of his record, and what is known now is pretty dismal.
I agree with both of you. Trump has more than just political optics to justify pardoning Arpaio. My point was that pardoning just for said optics (for example, pardoning a convicted terrorist to curry favor with Puerto Ricans) is a misuse.
That being said, the President (and state governors for that matter) have broad power to pardon and commute. I think that is a good thing, even if they sometimes misuse it.
Why do you feel that it’s appropriate to severely truncate the original post and put words in the mouth of its author? Not interesting.
Putting ‘words into the mouths’ of the comments is rampant here. It began with the title. Who exactly is “looking up to” the Sheriff?