President Trump ended that railroading of an 85-year-old man whose only crime was upholding federal law.
Congress may wish to seek impeachment of the judges involved for denying Arpaio his civil rights.
But then again, I am vindictive.
In pardoning Arpaio, President Trump sent a message to those under investigation by two dozen Democratic lawyers -- the biggest boondoggle since Solyndra.
The message of his pardon is: Donald Trump has your back.
Nobody will be hung out to dry like Scooter Libby. (And Trump ought to pardon him too.)
This is terrible news for the Swamp Critters.
No one will roll over on Trump to avoid Mueller's charges, because people now know Trump can and will pardon them if they remain loyal.
From Philip Bump of the Washington Post:
The broader question raised by the pardon, then, is where Trump would draw the line. If he’s willing to pardon Joe Arpaio for ignoring a court order in service of a political goal Trump embraces, why wouldn’t he pardon another individual he respects for similarly ignoring a demand from the court. Say, a former employee or a family member who, say, was issued a subpoena to testify before a special prosecutor?
One message from the Arpaio pardon is precisely that Trump sees his evaluation of the boundaries of legality as superior to the boundaries set by the legal system. The Constitution gives him that power. As we’ve noted before the presidential pardon is absolute. He can pardon anyone for any federal crime at any time — even before the person actually faces any charges and even if no crime actually took place. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, except to impeach Trump and remove him from office to prevent him from doing it again. (The president who replaces him might be able to revoke a recent pardon, one expert told us, but it’s far from certain.)
In other words, if any of Trump’s allies decides to tell special counsel Robert Mueller to stick his subpoena in the south side of the National Mall, Mueller can press a court for contempt charges. The person could be convicted of those charges — and then get a pardon identical to Arpaio’s.Yep.
And you can even do a preemptive pardon, as Ford did with Nixon in 1974, and Bush 41 did with his officials in 1992.
You know how many votes such pardoning would cost President Trump in 2020?
Less than zero.
Oh, a few people may drop him, but more who did not support him last year are encouraged by the spine he shows and uses.
After Arpaio, there really is no reason to continue the Mueller Inquisition. Or maybe they will indict on something outrageously absurd to feed red tofu to the Fifth Columnists in the media and Antifa fascists.
At any rate, pardon my laughter.
ADDENDUM: Reaction to this observation has reached a critical mass of stupidity on Twitter.
***
Please enjoy my books on how the press bungled the 2016 election.
Caution: Readers occasionally may laugh out loud at the media as they read this account of Trump's election.
It is available on Kindle, and in paperback.
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When is your next book, Don? And what's the title?
ReplyDeleteSometime soon.
DeleteI may have a contest on the title
How about one of these:
Delete"Bigly"
"Triggered"
"Snowflakes in Hell"
"Not a Smidgen"
And, because I've run out of turnable cheeks: "John McCain's Brain Tumor Speaks"
@Suddenly Single, we now know why you are suddenly single
DeleteI've been directing lefties to are 'tut-tutting' this pardon to Google so they can look up 'Mark Rich'.
ReplyDeleteWe don't need directions from the alt right
DeleteMr single ,or trolling by a member of antifa.
DeleteSure ya do. Here, I'll help:
Delete1) Grasp grenade firmly with both hands
2) Wedge grenade securely between your ass cheeks
3) Using stronger hand, pull pin on grenade
What was it The Black Jesus used to say? Oh yeah. "I won, you lost." And now I quote the great Ricardo Montalbon:
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Eat it up, Libs. Eat it.
I never understood the ruling other than from an ideological basis. The Obama lawyers who lied to the court on DACA, were not found in criminal contempt. Under the secure communities program, he could enforce federal immigration law.
ReplyDeleteThe Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 added Section 287(g), performance of immigration officer functions by state officers and employees, to the Immigration and Nationality Act. This authorizes the Director of ICE to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions, provided that the local law enforcement officers receive appropriate training and function under the supervision of ICE officers.
I never understood the ruling other than from an ideological basis. The Obama lawyers who lied to the court on DACA, were not found in criminal contempt. Under the secure communities program, he could enforce federal immigration law.
ReplyDeleteThe Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 added Section 287(g), performance of immigration officer functions by state officers and employees, to the Immigration and Nationality Act. This authorizes the Director of ICE to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions, provided that the local law enforcement officers receive appropriate training and function under the supervision of ICE officers.
Thus the partisan judge and no jury.
DeleteTrump won't be impeached so Bumper is perhaps out of luck. Obama lied and broke the law at will but to the pipsqueak apparatchik Bumper then He was Comrade Stalin whose word could remove him from cruising the rumor for rent DC cocktail circuit and confine him in the press gulag of crafting obituaries, so never to be crossed. But there is still hope! For bravely denoucing the fiendish plot of Trotskyhitlertrump to over throw the United States rule of law by activist judicial fiat he will be certainly be rewarded with some juicy plum, say reporting on a labor day fest of Trump hating moguls plotting in some Hamptons mansion to bring back Obama as Napoleon to ignite Civil War, as was recently pushed by the NYT.
ReplyDeleteYes,I'm sure Commrad Bezos will be most generous too after he takes control of the world's food supply. Bumper may get control of the first five year plan for. conservative starvation. On his way up I'd say.
The article is correct.
ReplyDeleteAs Adam Gingrich pointed out a few weeks ago, the way Prosecutors "flip" a person under investigation is to get them to give up someone above them in the food chain. SOP. And it's pretty clear that through back channels those Mueller is investigating have been told not to worry about any findings against them.
Contrast this with what the Obama/Lynch/Comey FBI did with Hillary. They offered immunity to all of Hillary's compatriots - Cheryl Mills, Huma, etc. - yet got nothing back in return. That was the opposite of standard behavior not just of the FBI, but of any government prosecutors office. Everyone working in the Justice field knew that when those deals of immunity were given, the fix was in.
By the way, Mueller and his team have known this since day one, and are working around it. They are experienced prosecutors. They knew going in that Trump was holding a wild card - in fact, many of them.
DeleteTheir dilemma is that they can set President Trump up to be accused of playing politics instead of discharging his duties as mandated by law. But to do that they in turn would have to play politics instead of discharging their duties as mandated by law. If this occurs, we will be back to the finger-pointing, as the left will accuse President Trump of undermining the investigation, and the right will accuse Mueller of playing politics instead of being an independent counsel overseen by the objective, independent FBI - as Eric Holder and Sally Yates tell the public they are supposed to be (or at least, when Republicans are in charge of the Executive branch).
Should the finger-pointing start then this entire Special Counsel exercise will prove to be a waste of government resources, particularly money.
No reason to jump to conclusions. Time will tell just how professional or political Mr. Mueller is.
Yes, with Hillary, the fix was in!And someone should go to jail for obstruction for just that!
Deletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/04/09/time-to-reverse-the-scooter-libby-conviction/?utm_term=.4b0cbb3a0e9c
ReplyDeleteSo what's it like being famous as a racist scum of the earth?
ReplyDeleteYou tell us. GOC
DeleteBetter than being a complete nobody, I imagine.
DeleteNancy - show us on the electoral map where the orange man hurt you.
Delete-Mikey NTH
(Hat Tip to a commenter at Althouse.)
The judge was the only one in contempt of the law.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, they're trying to blame the Dosier on an unknown "wealthy Republican donor".
Guess what? Hillary Clinton is "a wealthy Republican donor", per Wiki.
She's probably still in shock, too;
"You mean he just gave a pardon away? For *free*?"
Excellent idea on pardoning Scooter Libby.
ReplyDeleteSmiling...........
ReplyDeleteThat George Bush did not pardon Scooter Libby was a travesty.
ReplyDeleteHe should run for Sheriff again.
ReplyDeleteHow about this? Democrats: All Fired Up. And Stewing In Their Own Juices. Nah, too long. Or,
ReplyDeleteDemocrats: No Traction On The Slippery Slope.
Nope.
If John McCain is so worried about due process then maybe the Keating 5 investigation should be reopened. Everyone knows McCain took the money and only his imprisonment in North Vietnam kept him from prosecution. Let's have another look.
ReplyDeleteDon,
ReplyDeleteThis is a somewhat related observation that if the "Deplorables" are not following elite/media scripts WRT Federal law enforcement --
"Bundy Ranch standoff trial ends with zero guilty verdicts"
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investigations/2017/08/22/no-guilty-verdicts-bundy-ranch-standoff-trial/592019001/
If you are in a situation where registered voters who show up for jury duty in Las Vegas are no-billing the Bundy clan's antics versus the Feds.
Pres Trump has zero possibility of losing votes over pardoning Sheriff Arpio enforcing Federal immigration laws the Deplorables have wanted enforced for 50-years.
We are now in a world of pure partisan enforcement of the law.
These are the wages of "Lawfare" by the Left and corporate elites.
If Trump enforces laws against the interests of those elites.
Those elites have no one to blame but themselves.
He ran a concentration camp, keeping people in tents so hot their shoes melted.
ReplyDeleteI bet their victims cried big tears over that.
DeleteI followed your link to Jake Tapper's Twitter, where (as you said) all the Trump-haters are freaking out. Some of them seem to be consoling themselves with the idea that pardoning someone also has the effect of eviscerating his 5th-Amendment rigthts, so people Trump pardoned could then be forced to testify against him. I don't know if that's true (although it at least sounds plausible), but they don't seem to realize that it still doesn't help. Even if a pardoned person knew something bad about Trump, and was forced to testify somewhere (Congress? Grand Jury?), that person could still remain silent. After all, what's the penalty for refusing to testify? A contempt charge, with potential jail time? Trump could just issue another pardon for that.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of leftists grasping at straws; they just don't want to admit it because they've got no other hope.
Remember these people thought that a Republican Congress would impeach and remove Trump putting Hillary in his place.
DeleteIn radio jargon what's critical is the signal to noise ratio. That's what defines selectivity in reception of a message (information).
ReplyDelete"Reaction to this observation has reached a critical mass of stupidity on Twitter."
Twitter, composed predominantly of high spurious noise sources as Jake Taper, illustrates why amplification most often results in the loss of a message.
Adding the pardon to his 220 MAGA Things: Trump @ Work |The First 6Months
ReplyDeletePres Trump is donating his paycheck. He gets 0 from us for All of this work.
https://amp.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6onxho/real_trump_news_updated_072117/
220 MAGA Things: Trump @ Work |The First 6Months http://americandigest.org/wp/220-maga-things-trump-work-first-six-months/#more-1869
ReplyDeleteNaw, the swamp critters will win.
ReplyDeleteWe'll find this out in October.
There's no evading the swamp.
"We have met the swamp, and it is us."
"As we’ve noted before the presidential pardon is absolute. He can pardon anyone for any federal crime at any time..."
ReplyDeleteIs the power absolute? Or is it limited to Federal crimes? While that may be the current interpretation by my reading it is absolute as regards anything other than impeachment.
The exact wording being 'offenses against the United States," which would encompass every lesser jurisdiction and every possible act, even if it was not legally classified as a crime (although ex-post facto and the restriction on bills of attainder would also seem to cover that.)
@ Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteDear Snowflake,
You're triggered! I love it!
Please keep feeding my SCHADENFREUDE!! It's another benefit of real Americans electing The Donald!
All I can say is, Give Me More!