In an apparent effort to destroy what is left of the Republican Party&#8217;s barely-remaining credibility, Arizona primary voters are apparently split between recently-pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio, state Senator Kelli Ward, and Rep. Martha McSally. McSally is a retired Air Force Colonel who recently joined the House; she&#8217;s voted with President Trump 100% of the time, as well as with the Republican Party 96% of the time. She&#8217;s pro-life, she&#8217;s hawkish on foreign policy, and she has a good record of gaining co-sponsors from the other side of the aisle. Her drawback for primary voters: she didn&#8217;t openly endorse Trump in 2016.
Now, here are her opponents.
Arpaio was recently pardoned by President Trump after being convicted of ignoring a court order to stop racially profiling. If you think that sentence was unjust, there&#8217;s plenty more to dislike about Arpaio&#8217;s candidacy, as <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/27/sheriff-joe-arpaio-no-conservative-no-hero-no-matter-what-trump-says-jon-gabriel-column/606012001/">Jon Gabriel points out</a>: his office failed to investigate hundreds of sex crimes, had journalists arrested, tried to charge political opponents, burned down a house and killed a dog in a search for illegal weapons that weren&#8217;t found, and wasted hundreds of millions of dollars. There&#8217;s a reason Arpaio lost his last sheriff&#8217;s race in the same election Trump won the state. <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/joe-arpaio-pardoned-concentration-camps-obama-birther-squad-and-other-655581">He&#8217;s also a birther</a>, for good measure.
Then there&#8217;s Ward. While Ward has been slandered as a chemtrail conspiracy theorist (not true), she did get herself in hot water last year for suggesting that John McCain would die after his cancer announcement, and that he should therefore should step down from his seat in her favor; she also said that McCain was &#8220;directly responsible for the rise of ISIS.&#8221; She&#8217;s got her support for Trump going for her &#8212; she&#8217;s tied herself to Trump in nearly every appearance. She was a Steve Bannon project until his career implosion. She ran against McCain in a primary in 2016 and lost to him by some 11 points. A poll last month shows her losing to Democrat Krysten Sinema by 7 points.
So, based on these descriptions, you&#8217;d figure that McSally would lead the race, followed by Ward, followed by Arpaio. Instead, the <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/368249-poll-arpaio-statistically-tied-with-mcsally-in-gop-primary-for-arizona">three are in a statistical dead heat</a>, with McSally at 31%, Arpaio at 29%, and Ward at 25%.
After the humiliation of the Roy Moore and the nearly-impossible accomplishment of handing an Alabama Senate seat to Democrats, doing the same with Arpaio should be unthinkable.
It&#8217;s not.
Perhaps it&#8217;s not because we&#8217;ve reached the point in American politics where distrust in institutions means that populism wins the day &#8212; not in terms of policy, but in terms of style. Voters, particularly on the Republican side, are so angry with the &#8220;elitism&#8221; and &#8220;establishmentarianism&#8221; of Republican politicians that they&#8217;re trending toward non-elite anti-establishment types. That would be fine if those types were merely political outsiders and anti-elitists &#8212; meaning that they weren&#8217;t interested in cutting cozy Washington, D.C. deals and didn&#8217;t believe that power should be centralized in the federal government.
But the populist style has nothing to do with policy stalwartness and decentralization. It has to do with being &#8220;anti-establishment,&#8221; meaning contrary on an attitudinal level, and &#8220;non-elite,&#8221; meaning &#8220;not qualified.&#8221; The populist style elevates people who are actually kooky, because they&#8217;re not embraced by the &#8220;elites.&#8221; In this game, personality disorders become a recommendation: they&#8217;re no better than we are, so at least they don&#8217;t look down their noses at us!
This is idiotic. As consumers, we tend to pick experts for jobs, from established brands. In our politicians, we do the opposite. That makes fringy mediocrity a calling card.
Enough is enough. I&#8217;m a Tea Partier down to the bone &#8212; I want power out of Washington, D.C. and the federal government slashed down to minimal size. But I agree with the founders that we need elites &#8212; people who are better than we are at the business of politics &#8212; in the business of politics. By all means, oppose elitism. But we must stop conflating elitism with being elite. You wouldn&#8217;t want a non-elite plumber. You shouldn&#8217;t want a non-elite politician.
I&#8217;m anti-establishment, too &#8212; I don&#8217;t think that Republicans who are interested in cutting bipartisan deals for the sake of &#8220;making government run&#8221; are doing us any service. But if by establishment, we just mean &#8220;people who have worked in D.C. for awhile&#8221; or &#8220;people who know how to write a bill,&#8221; that&#8217;s not disqualifying. Those should be basic job prerequisites. Incompetence can defeat conservatism just as surely as malice.
Politics is about more than attitude. It&#8217;s about the people electing the best people to be representatives. That&#8217;s what separates republican government from democratic government. Unfortunately, we may be beyond seeing our politicians as political proxies rather than emotional avatars. If so, look for more fringe candidates and more rotten races.

DEAD HEAT: Arpaio Tied With Ward, McSally In Arizona Primary. Could Republicans Hand Another Senate Seat To Democrats?

Arizona

Donald Trump

Republican Party

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

On Thursday, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pardoned by President Trump after being held in criminal contempt by a court for refusing to stop law enforcement measures determined by the court to constitute racial profiling, announced he might run for Senate in Arizona. &#8220;I am seriously, seriously, seriously considering running for the U.S. Senate,&#8221; said Arpaio, &#8220;not the congressman&#8217;s seat.&#8221;
Arpaio is famous across the country for his hardline opposition to illegal immigration and his splashy move to make prisoners wear pink in order to humiliate them for their crimes. That made him a hero among Republicans, who largely believe that political correctness has hampered law enforcement&#8217;s efforts to fight crime. But Arpaio is much more than the headline: he&#8217;s also got an extraordinarily checkered past, ranging from his ardent birtherism to the Maricopa County Sheriff&#8217;s Office paying out a $3.5 million settlement to the Phoenix New Times for arresting reporters who exposed a grand jury subpoena.
Arpaio would have the advantage in any early Republican primary, if the nomination of Donald Trump nationally and Roy Moore in Alabama are any indicators. That&#8217;s because Republican candidates who are controversial for their hard-line positions have been targeted for those positions; the base therefore assumes that new media attacks aren&#8217;t factually based, but politically based. They hated Arpaio for his positions on illegal immigration, so if the media break news on any other awful thing he&#8217;s done, their motive is already clear. That&#8217;s the logic behind the conservatives who rally behind Roy Moore: the media attacked Moore for years because Moore wouldn&#8217;t bow to judicial supremacy on the Ten Commandments, and so further media attacks can be written off as more of the same, even if the attacks are based on horrifying fact patterns.
Furthermore, since the Republican base sees the media as the chief obstacle to conservative success over the past two decades &#8212; the same media that pilloried George W. Bush and Mitt Romney &#8212; they&#8217;re not sad to see the media beside themselves over Arpaio and Moore. In fact, there&#8217;s a certain glee to watching major media figures lament the base&#8217;s embrace of such figures &#8212; a feeling of &#8220;they used to control us, but they can&#8217;t anymore.&#8221;
That means that famous local right-wing politicians who have had run-ins with the press are immediately at an advantage in political primaries. Arpaio might not become a senator. But he&#8217;d have to be an early favorite to win the nominatinon based on this logic.

Sheriff Joe: I Might Run For Senate In Arizona

Roy Moore

Well, that went about how the folks over at NBC News no doubt hoped it would. A new NBC News/Survey Monkey poll found that about 6 in 10 of the people they surveyed disapproved of President Trump&#8217;s pardoning of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio&#8204; &#8212; which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be about the same percentage that had an overall unfavorable opinion of Trump and disapproved of his handling of the job.
&#8220;Six in 10 said they felt it was &#8216;wrong&#8217; for Trump to pardon Arpaio, who was <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/former-arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio-convicted-crime-ignoring-judge-s-n788251">convicted</a> last month of criminal contempt for ignoring a judge&#8217;s order not to detain suspected undocumented immigrants,&#8221; NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/poll-most-oppose-trump-s-pardon-ex-sheriff-arpaio-booting-n797526">reports</a>. &#8220;Thirty-four percent of respondents said they felt Trump&#8217;s pardon was &#8216;the right thing&#8217; to do.&#8221;
Asked about their overall impression of Trump, the respondents were split at about the same percentages: 61% said they had an unfavorable impression of the president, while 36% said they had a favorable impression.
The split was likewise almost identical when it came to opinions on Trump&#8217;s handling of the presidency: 59% disapproved; 39% approved.
A previous study about what was driving Trump&#8217;s historically bad poll numbers found that, unlike both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, disapproval of Trump was most strongly connected to <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/18666/study-whats-driving-trumps-poll-numbers-%E2%80%94-policy-james-barrett">personal dislike of him</a>, rather than disagreement about specific policies. As the NBC News poll demonstrates, again, those who have an unfavorable view of Trump, generally respond negatively about his job performance and his approach on various hot button issues of the day.
NBC News also asked Americans how they felt about the Obama-era DACA program; the splits were slightly more pronounced: 64% want to keep Obama&#8217;s &#8220;DREAMers&#8221; protections in place; 30% don&#8217;t. Support for a path to legalization for illegal immigrants was even stronger, at 71% in favor, 26% opposing.
NBC News&#8217; approval numbers for Trump are slightly worse than the national average as calculated by <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html">Real Clear Politics</a>, which currently shows him with a 38.5 approval and 56.6 disapproval (a -18.1 deficit). While Trump is also behind by double digits in <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval_foreign_policy-6183.html">foreign policy</a>, his handling of the economy is currently dead even, at <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html">45.5 &#8211; 45.5</a>.
Poll info: The NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll was conducted online from August 24 through August 29, 2017, among a national sample of 10,129 adults. Error estimate: plus or minus 1.4 percentage points. For full results and methodology, click <a href="http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/TODAY/z_Creative/NBC%20News%20SurveyMonkey%20Poll%20Toplines%20and%20Methodology%208.24-8.29.pdf">here</a>

Poll: How Do Americans Feel About Trump Pardoning Sheriff Arpaio?

Illegal Immigration

NBC News

CNN&#8217;s David Gergen framed President Donald Trump and the broader Republican Party as hostile toward Hispanics during his Monday punditry.
Trump&#8217;s recent pardoning of Joe Arpaio amounted to an insult to Hispanics, said Gergen:
<blockquote>
This sends a message from Trump, and increasingly from the Republican Party. That if you&#8217;re Latino, you&#8217;re not welcome in our party.
</blockquote>
Gergen suggested that Trump&#8217;s &#8220;base&#8221; of voters is bigoted against Hispanics.
<blockquote>
It&#8217;s incredulous that this isn&#8217;t part of Republicans&#8217; understanding, now, after what happened in California. There was an incident in California, of course, Proposition 187 some years ago, it was seen as anti-Latino, and California&#8217;s been a Democratic state ever since. 
</blockquote>
Gergen and other CNN personalities regularly frame Hispanics as broadly supportive of affording citizenship to foreigners illegally in the country, further implying that Republican political success depends on appealing to allegedly widespread support among Hispanics for amnestying illegal immigrants.
Watch Gergen&#8217;s comments below.
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Trump received a larger share of Hispanic voters than either John McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney in 2012.
CNN&#8217;s Douglas Brinkley agreed with Gergen&#8217;s assessment, describing Arpaio as &#8220;anti-Latino, a &#8220;race-baiter,&#8221; and the &#8220;kingpin of racial profiling.&#8221; 
Trump&#8217;s pardoning of Arpaio as Hurricane Harvey approached Texas&#8217;s gulf coast was &#8220;a bit demented,&#8221; added Brinkley. <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/19663/cnns-brinkley-10-15-percent-trumps-supporters-are-robert-kraychik">Two weeks ago</a>, Brinkley surmised that &#8220;10 to 15%&#8221; of &#8220;Trump&#8217;s base&#8221; is composed of the alt-right, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klanners and assorted white racial nationalists.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

CNN’s Gergen: ‘If You’re Latino, You’re Not Welcome’ In The GOP

Media

Media Bias

On CNN Sunday, Univision&#8217;s Jorge Ramos used the word &#8220;racism&#8221; 14 times in a <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1708/27/sotu.01.html">single segment</a> ostensibly examining President Donald Trump&#8217;s pardoning of Joe Arpaio. He also used the word &#8220;racist&#8221; three times.
Ramos was countered by State Senator Steve Montenegro (R-AZ), who expressed support for Trump&#8217;s pardoning of Arpaio. 
CNN invited Ramos on as an authority on the &#8220;Latino community,&#8221; with Jake Tapper asking Ramos to channel Hispanics&#8217; views of Trump&#8217;s pardoning of Arpaio.
Ramos quickly deployed his racial identity tactics, accusing Montenegro of somehow betraying his heritage. Montenegro immigrated from El Salvador at the age of four:
<blockquote>
RAMOS: I think Senator Montenegro is forgetting that he&#8217;s an immigrant from El Salvador and that Sheriff Joe Arpaio discriminated against many people just like you, Senator &#8230;
And I &#8212; your last name is in Spanish, Montenegro, not in English. And I find it really disturbing and sad when an immigrant like you decides to turn his back on other immigrants and forgets where he comes from. 
</blockquote>
Trump&#8217;s pardoning of Arpaio, said Ramos, amounted to a greenlighting of &#8220;racism&#8221;:
<blockquote>
RAMOS: By pardoning Arpaio, President Trump is defending racism. &#8230; President Trump decided to be on the wrong side of history, and that is with racism and with discrimination. &#8230;
President Trump is making racism something normal. And by defending someone who has been accused of racist behavior, like Arpaio, he is telling everybody in the United States, you know, it is OK.
It is OK. Racism is OK in this country. And I&#8217;m really disturbed and concerned about that.
</blockquote>
Tapper offered no challenge to any of Ramos&#8217; assertions.
Watch the segment below.

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Ramos regularly conflates lawful and unlawful immigration and immigrants.
CNN regularly frames &#8220;racism&#8221; as a widespread attitude across contemporary America, casting it as mostly a political pathology among Republicans, conservatives, and whites.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

Ramos Says ‘Racism’ 14 Times In One CNN Segment On Trump

Jake Tapper

Jorge Ramos

State of the Union

President Donald Trump&#8217;s pardoning of Joe Arpaio is a political overture to neo-fascists, said Richard Painter, a former chief ethics lawyer from the Bush Administration and current vice president of the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
In his former capacity as sheriff in Maricopa County, AZ, Arpaio was convicted of contempt of court by a Federal court in Arizona. He was pardoned by Trump on Friday.
Speaking with CNN&#8217;s John Berman on Friday, Painter described Trump&#8217;s pardoning of Arpaio as an appeal to the &#8220;alt-right&#8221;:
<blockquote>
This is an attempt to appeal to a very small percentage of the American people who favor racial discrimination &#8211; discrimination against blacks, Mexicans, and others &#8211; and that&#8217;s not the Republican Party of today. That may be the direction that the so-called &#8220;alt-right&#8221; wants to take us, but that&#8217;s the neo-fascist element, that&#8217;s not the Republican Party of today, that&#8217;s not America. 

They want to appeal to the far-right base&#8230; Maybe they had to throw a bone to the far-right after Bannon and Gorka [resigned from the White House].
</blockquote>
Painter described Arpaio as &#8220;one of the worst [police officers]&#8221; and a &#8220;lawless sheriff.&#8221;
Painter then pushed the narrative of Arpaio as a racist, crediting Arpaio with fueling &#8220;anti-police sentiment&#8221;:
<blockquote>
He was systematically discriminating against racial minorities , and that&#8217;s the kinda thing that stirs up a lot of the anti-police sentiment that we have going on in various parts of the country. 
</blockquote>
&#8220;Ninety-nine percent of police officers are great police officers,&#8221; said Painter, describing a small fraction of law enforcement officers as &#8220;bad cops.&#8221; No such analysis was offered of judges or the broader judiciary.
Painter added that he had not examined the details of Arpaio&#8217;s convictions prior to offering commentary on the pardon. He currently teaches law at the University of Minnesota.
Berman offered no challenge to any of Painter&#8217;s assertions.
Watch the segment below.
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Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

Bush’s Ethics Lawyer: Arpaio Pardon Appeals To ‘Neo-Fascists’

Racism

After weeks of speculation, on Friday night President Donald Trump officially <a href="http://news.trust.org/item/20170826001249-riciv">pardoned</a> former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a political ally who was convicted last month for criminal contempt for disregarding a court order against his &#8220;tough&#8221; practices regarding illegal immigrants.
The pardon did not come as a surprise. In his highly anticipated rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night, Trump made clear to the 8,000 or so attendees that a pardon was coming soon.
&#8220;I won&#8217;t do it tonight because I don&#8217;t want to cause any controversy,&#8221; he said, adding, &#8220;I&#8217;ll make a prediction: I think he&#8217;s going to be just fine.&#8221;
Trump and Arpaio have both expressed support for each other in the past, particularly on the issue of illegal immigration, and it was the sheriff&#8217;s aggressive stance on the issue that resulted in his conviction.
Arpaio was <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/19290/famous-arizona-sheriff-convicted-contempt-james-barrett">convicted</a> of criminal contempt on July 31 for what U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton said was a willful disregard of a court order to stop his controversial policing practices aimed at illegal immigrants. Judge G. Murray Snow had previously ruled that Arpaio&#8217;s policy of detaining individuals solely on the suspicion they were illegal immigrants constituted &#8220;racial profiling&#8221; and thus was unconstitutional. After Arpaio was ordered to cease the &#8220;<a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/31/joe-arpaio-verdict/526253001/">immigration roundups</a>,&#8221; Judge Bolton said he deliberately defied the order for at least 17 months and slapped him with a criminal contempt conviction that carried up to six months of confinement.
Arpaio&#8217;s defense maintained that Judge Snow&#8217;s order was unclear and that the sheriff had no &#8220;willful intent&#8221; to defy the injunction.
Even before Trump issued the official pardon, illegal immigrant and civil rights activists were protesting. One of those groups was the ACLU, who <a href="https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/900200469947174912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&amp;ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2017%2F08%2F25%2Fpolitics%2Fsheriff-joe-arpaio-donald-trump-pardon%2Findex.html">tweeted</a> directly at Trump on Tuesday night that Arpaio &#8220;was not &#8216;just doing his job.&#8217; He was violating the Constitution and discriminating against Latinos.&#8221;
But none of that matters now because Arpaio has just been pardoned by the country&#8217;s chief law enforcement officer.

DONE: Trump Pardons ‘Toughest Sheriff In America’

Immigration

Law Enforcement

On Wednesday, California Senator Kamala Harris issued a tweet warning President Trump not to pardon former Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Joe Arpaio was convicted because he committed a crime. He should not be pardoned. <a href="https://t.co/YGvQkK6Kae">https://t.co/YGvQkK6Kae</a>
&#8212; Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenKamalaHarris/status/900386914557186050">August 23, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Harris referenced a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/22/politics/joe-arpaio-sheriff/index.html">CNN story</a> about Trump&#8217;s speech at a Phoenix rally on Tuesday in which Trump hinted he might pardon Arpaio. Trump had asked the audience, &#8220;Do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?&#8221; He continued, &#8220;So was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job? &#8230; You know what, I&#8217;ll make a prediction: I think he&#8217;s going to be just fine, OK? But I won&#8217;t do it tonight, because I don&#8217;t want to cause any controversy. But Sheriff Joe should feel good.&#8221;
In July, Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt for disregarding a federal district court order in a racial profiling case.
On August 15, Trump retweeted a post by Fox &amp; Friends which referenced the network&#8217;s <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/14/trump-seriously-considering-pardon-for-sheriff-joe-arpaio.html">report</a> that Trump might pardon Arpaio.
Harris thinks that Arpaio shouldn&#8217;t be pardoned because he committed a crime? As the Department of Justice <a href="https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon-information-and-instructions">notes</a>:
<blockquote>
Under the Constitution, only federal criminal convictions, such as those adjudicated in the United States District Courts, may be pardoned by the President. In addition, the President&#8217;s pardon power extends to convictions adjudicated in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and military court-martial proceedings.
</blockquote>
The DOJ adds that a presidential pardon is &#8220;ordinarily a sign of forgiveness and is granted in recognition of the applicant&#8217;s acceptance of responsibility for the crime and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or release from confinement. &#8230; The power to grant pardons is vested in the President alone.&#8221;
Therefore the only question as to the legitimacy of Trump pardoning Arpaio is whether he was convicted of a federal crime, which he was.
And just where was Harris when Barack Obama pardoned <a href="https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-statistics">over 200 people</a> during his tenure? Nowhere to be found.
Harris should pipe down about pardons that are issued, especially since she has been guilty of over-zealous prosecution herself: in January 2015, when Harris was still California&#8217;s State Attorney General, her underling, Deputy Atty. Gen. Kevin R. Vienna, was <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-lying-prosecutors-20150201-story.html">admonished</a> by Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who asked whether Harris wanted to defend a conviction &#8220;obtained by lying prosecutors.&#8221; Kozinski warned that if Harris and Vienna didn&#8217;t give up the case, the court would &#8220;name names&#8221; in a ruling that would not be &#8220;very pretty.&#8221;

Kamala Harris Tweets The Dumbest Thing About Trump’s Pardon Power EVER

Barack Obama

Kamala Harris

Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who rose to national fame because of his aggressive policies regarding illegal immigration and criminals, has gone from enforcer of the law to convicted criminal. His crime, according to U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton&#8217;s ruling Monday, is criminal contempt of court for willfully violating a federal judge&#8217;s order to stop detaining suspected illegal immigrants, a practice the judge condemned as &#8220;racial profiling.&#8221;
Judge Bolton&#8217;s ruling carries a sentence of up to six months in confinement, but Arpaio says he&#8217;s going to appeal and press for a trial. <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/31/joe-arpaio-verdict/526253001/">The Arizona Republic</a> provides some context for the ruling against Arpaio&#8217;s &#8220;immigration round-ups&#8221;:
<blockquote>
In December 2011, amid a long-running racial profiling case, U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow ordered Arpaio&#8217;s deputies to stop holding individuals solely on the belief they were in the country illegally. They only were to detain those who were accused of a state crime.
But Arpaio&#8217;s deputies continued to do so for at least 17 months thereafter. During the bench trial, witnesses testified that 171 individuals were illegally apprehended and then turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or to the Border Patrol.
</blockquote>
Arpaio has defended his action by arguing that Judge Snow&#8217;s injunction against the &#8220;round-ups&#8221; was unclear, and that rather than being a case of &#8220;willful intent&#8221; to defy the order, Arpaio was simply not clear about what he could or could not do. &#8220;The only one who understood what Judge Snow meant was Judge Snow himself,&#8221; said Defense attorney Dennis Wilenchik.
But on Monday, Bolton ruled against that defense, insisting that Snow &#8220;issued a clear and definite order enjoining Defendant from detaining persons for further investigation without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed&#8221; and that Arpaio &#8220;willfully violated the order by failing to do anything to ensure his subordinates&#8217; compliance and by directing them to continue to detain persons for whom no criminal charges could be filed.&#8221;
While on the opposite end of the spectrum, the case is similar to the case against &#8220;sanctuary cities&#8221; in that Arpaio was ruled as defying federal law in his handling of illegal immigrants. About a decade ago, Arpaio took the lead as an enforcer of the state&#8217;s illegal immigration laws and began stopping those suspected of being illegal immigrants, a practice known as &#8220;pretextual&#8221; stops. Many of those detained were turned over to federal immigration authorities:
<blockquote>
Many of those taken into custody were not accused of violating a state crime, but only of living in the country illegally. Once they were detained, deputies would turn over the individuals to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol officials, who would initiate deportation proceedings.
</blockquote>
Arpaio&#8217;s enforcement practices were ruled to be &#8220;racial profiling&#8221; in 2013 by Judge Snow, who went on to expand the case in 2015 to determine if Arpaio violated his injunction. Snow ruled that Arpaio and three of his aides were guilty of civil contempt then referred them to federal prosecutors, who dropped the charges against all but Arpaio and decided to only go after him for violating the preliminary injunction.
<a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/31/joe-arpaio-verdict/526253001/">Read more on the case here</a>.

Famous Arizona Sheriff Convicted Of Contempt For ‘Immigration Round-ups’

On Tuesday, Sheriff Joe Arpaio was <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio-officially-charged-criminal-contempt-n672846">charged</a> with criminal contempt-of-court because he ignored a judge&#8217;s order in a racial-profiling case. According to<a href="http://kjzz.org/content/386320/sheriff-joe-arpaio-formally-charged-criminal-contempt"> KJZZ, </a> &#8220;The charging document said the sheriff willfully disobeyed a court order by continuing to make immigration arrests after he was told to stop.&#8221;
NPR <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/11/497577585/feds-will-press-criminal-contempt-charges-against-ariz-sheriff-arpaio">reported</a>, &#8220;In December 2011, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow issued a preliminary injunction ordering Arpaio and his deputies to stop targeting Latino drivers. Prosecutors allege that Arpaio&#8217;s deputies defied the injunction for at least 18 months. In May 2013, Snow ruled that Arpaio&#8217;s office had engaged in racial profiling.&#8221;
Arpaio ignored the order, but insisted later that he had not ignored the order. The judge <a href="http://www.wfsb.com/story/33362032/criminal-charges-for-arpaio-court-hearing-tuesday-could-provide-answers">differed,</a> claiming Arpaio though continuing the patrols would help his 2012 re-election campaign. The initial charge was raised to a contempt of court charge.
Arpaio, 84, will seek a seventh term on November 8; ,if he is convicted he could spend six months in jail.
It has cost county taxpayers 48 million to defend Arpaio and his office; the cost could rise to $72 million.
On October 11, Arpaio released a statement challenging the case against him:
<blockquote>
First and foremost, it is clear that the corrupt Obama Justice Department is trying to influence my re-election as Sheriff of Maricopa County. It is no coincidence that this announcement comes 28 days before the election and the day before early voting starts. It is a blatant abuse of power and the people of Maricopa County should be as outraged as I am.
As your elected Sheriff, my job is to enforce the law. Because enforcing illegal immigration laws is not politically correct, within the first 100 days of taking office, Obama put then-Attorney General Eric Holder in charge of pursuing a &#8216;racial profiling&#8217; case against me &#8211; among other trumped up, failed legal pursuits &#8211; and eight years later they&#8217;re still pursuing the case.
Now, with Obama on his way out of office, he and DOJ officials know this is their last shot at taking me down. This highly unusual charge of criminal contempt against an elected local official should be seen for what is really is: a political maneuver by a corrupt Administration to damage me politically and a continuation of its War on Cops.
</blockquote>

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