Arpaio whips up support for Trump after controversial pardon
A controversial US sheriff who recently received a pardon from US President Donald Trump says the GOP should rally behind the commander in chief.
“They’re trying to go after the president. He’s a great guy and I’m with him and will always be with him,” said Joe Arpaio, a longtime sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Trump announced he was pardoning Arpaio on Friday just as Hurricane Harvey barrelled in towards the state of Texas.
The contentious decision was not expected to be made so rapidly, although the White House had signaled Trump was about to make the unconventional move.
The measure faced backlash from the president’s opponents and members of his own Republican party.
"I’m sad what they’re doing to him," the former Arizona sheriff said after Republican lawmakers complained about the move.
For 23 years, the sheriff has been engaged in pushing his aggressive stance on undocumented immigrants until in 2011 he was ordered to stop detention of the so-called illegal immigrants.
Initially, Trump had attempted to get his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to free Arpaio.
Sessions, however, advised the president not make such an inappropriate move. So Trump waited for his long-time ally to be found guilty in a trial just to grant him pardon then.
Usually, presidents wait until the end of their terms before granting pardons, and that after some formal request for clemency.
“Law enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States,” said a spokesman for Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. “We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon."
News of the pardon broke as the president was already under fire due to his failure to immediately condemn the recent tragedy in Charlottesville,Virginia, in which a driver plowed into demonstrators protesting against white supremacists, killing a young woman and injuring nearly 20 others.
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