So to all you Republicans who flaunt the word Un-American. The president of the United States, just used his prerogative of pardoning to excuse someone who openly, blatantly and knowingly defied the fourth amendment and got convicted for it. It's legal, but its also a direct assault on the founding fathers who envisiont the judicial as the ultimate protectors of the constitution. What does the rule of law mean when a president pardons his allies because he feels the constitution can be tossed when he doesn't agree with it?
Are you that passionate when Obama and Clinton pardoned criminals or is the just an outrage because you disagree with a Presidents politics?
Does the merit or propriety of Trump pardoning Arpaio have ANYTHING to do with how some poster viewed some other pardon?
How a poster viewed the pardons of previous presidents can be evidence of whether the outrage about this particular pardon might be based more on opposition to Trump than belief that the pardon is a particularly bad thing.
Arpaio was convicted of a minor offense. Presidents since Washington have been granting pardons, often to people convicted of far more severe crimes. If someone has never before cared about presidential pardons, it brings up the question of why it is such a big deal now.
The issue isn’t the severity of the offense but its nature.
Arpaio exhibited brazen contempt for the rule of law – something that cannot be pardoned with regard to a law enforcement officer sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
And that includes laws enacted pursuant to the Constitution, in this case Federal immigration laws and how those laws are to be implemented as determined by the courts.
Arpaio wasn’t required to like or approve of Federal immigration laws, or the rulings of Federal courts, but he was required to obey those laws and court rulings.
Moreover, Arpaio was motivated to ignore the rule of law by an unwarranted animus toward Hispanic immigrants – immigrants entitled to Constitutional protections: to a presumption of innocence and to the right of due process of the law, all disregarded by Arpaio with hateful contempt.
Consequently, the condemnation of Trump’s pardon is perfectly appropriate – separate and apart from Trump.