Let's move on from Hurricane Harvey to the storm
that is battering the entire country, Donald Trump.
He's been president for seven months.
And like a teenage boy with a locked bedroom door,
he's been exploring his new powers.
And this weekend, Trump confirmed
that he could get someone off all by himself.
TV REPORTER:
from President Trump late Friday.
A presidential pardon for Arizona's controversial
anti-illegal immigration hard-liner, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
TV REPORTER:
claim the pardon condones racism.
TV REPORTER:
arguing the president undermines the rule of law
by pardoning Arpaio.
-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan -That's right.
has come out against the pardon.
This is what his spokesman told The
"The Speaker does not agree with the decision."
Yeah, Paul Ryan.
Sort of standing up to Trump.
Yeah. No, because, I mean, let's be honest.
Paul Ryan's never really standing up to Trump, right?
Paul Ryan stands up to Trump the same way
you stand up to a waiter at a (bleep) restaurant.
You're all confident when he's not there.
Like, "This food is horrible.
"Wh-What's that? Oh, no, everything's great.
"Thank you, thank you. Yeah, yeah.
"Could I just have all the salt, please?
All the salt. Thank you."
And now, to understand why both Democrats and many Republicans
have condemned this pardon, you need to understand the man
who Trump gave the pardon to.
So let's saddle up and meet this character
in a special installment of our ongoing series,
Profiles in Tremendousness: Pardon Edition.
-♪ ♪ -Was Sheriff Joe
convicted for doing his job?
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Joe Arpaio.
He was elected sheriff
of Maricopa County, Arizona, in 1993,
and quickly developed a reputation
as an intense opponent of illegal immigration.
Which you can kind of get, you know?
He's in law enforcement,
he's cracking down on something illegal, you know?
It's like how Smokey the Bear
brutally mauls anyone who starts a forest fire.
That's just a thing.
Oh, what, you thought he writes them a citation?
No, he kills people. He kills them.
He's a bear. He's a killing machine.
But as much as Sheriff Arpaio presented himself
as anti-illegal, uh, immigrant,
it turned out that he, uh, was really
just anti-being a decent human being.
In you talk to law enforcement officers
that have worked with this guy, they will tell you
he is a thug and he's an embarrassment.
REPORTER:
by forcing prisoners to live in canvas tents
in triple-digit temperatures.
He shackled women in labor to the bed,
His aggressive use of stun guns, overcrowding in his prisons...
Prisoners there died at an alarming rate,
often without any explanation given.
One of his jailers nearly broke the neck
of one of the inmates there,
a paraplegic man who had the temerity to ask for a catheter.
He marched Latino prisoners into a segregated area
with electric fencing.
Truly one of the worst sheriffs in America.
Yes, the man Trump pardoned
is regarded by many as one of the worst sheriffs in America.
Worse than Sheriff Clarke,
worse than Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane,
worse than the sheriff Bob Marley shot in his song.
And that guy was a dick. That guy was a real dick.
I mean, Bob Marley was super chill. If he kills you,
you had it coming. You had it coming.
But this guy's bad news.
And now Sheriff Arpaio's abuses of power
didn't just hurt the inmates at his prisons, right?
They also hurt the taxpayers who had to foot the bill.
During Arpaio's tenure, between 1993 and 2015,
cases involving Arpaio and his office
totaled $142 million in legal fees,
settlements and compliance costs,
according to
In fact, that includes two lawsuits
over the wrongful deaths of prisoners
and tens of millions of civil rights
and discrimination suits.
Yeah. Just think about that for a second.
$142 million
spent because of him.
Think about all the other things that
that money could have bought.
Schools or roads,
or they could have just paid
Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather
to punch Arpaio in the face.
That's a lot of money.
That is a (bleep) of money.
And now... And now, here's what may surprise you.
All that (bleep) that Arpaio did--
that's not why he needed a pardon.
No, those were just his extracurriculars.
Yeah. It turns out his full-time job is racism.
Tonight the controversial former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio
has been found guilty of criminal contempt.
Arpaio was found guilty for defying a 2011 court order
which barred his officers from stopping and detaining
Latino motorists.
His agency has been accused of pulling over drivers
just because they were Hispanic so they could
check their immigration status,
and not just because of traffic violations.
Wow.
Being Latino in that town must suck.
Getting pulled over all the time just for that?
"Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?"
"Uh, because I'm playing 'Despacito'?"
"Yeah, and it's the version without Justin Bieber.
Let me see your ID. Let me see your ID!"
Now... now, contempt of court
may not seem like a big deal
or something to get excited about.
I understand that, because when you hear "contempt of court,"
you think
"I don't care, I'll spend the night in jail."
But this wasn't some "night in jail" offense.
This was a federal court ruling that Sheriff Arpaio
was routinely violating Americans' constitutional rights
and ordered him to stop, immediately.
And he was basically like, "I don't care,
I'll spend the night in jail."
And here's why Trump's pardon is an even bigger deal
than merely condoning Arpaio's illegal actions.
Remember how the three branches of government
are supposed to be equal?
Well, convicting someone of contempt is the one and only way
the judicial branch can put muscle behind its decisions.
So, when the president of the United States steps in
and pardons someone's contempt conviction,
he's essentially rendering the courts powerless.
Why would Trump pardon Joe Arpaio?
REPORTER:
long before his presidential run,
supporting Trump's birther lie about President Obama.
Trump really admired what Sheriff Arpaio was doing.
It's just easy to endorse him,
because everything I believe in,
he's doing
and he's going to do it when he becomes president.
You know, for a guy who's not racist,
Donald Trump sure has a lot of racist friends.
Yeah. He's like the straight guy at the gym
that all the gay guys hit on.
Maybe they know something you don't.
Just maybe.
(applause)
And, and there may be another reason.
It feels like Trump did this
not just to reward Arpaio's loyalty
but to send a message to all his other cronies from the campaign.
"Hey, guys, good news, we get our own set of laws.
"You don't need to cooperate with Mueller
"and the Russia investigation--
I'll just pardon you."
And here's what tells me that this was really just about Trump
sending a message to not sweat the judicial branch, right?
The fact that Arpaio hadn't even been sentenced yet.
He pardoned him before the sentencing.
And at most, at most, he would have had to spend
six months in jail. That's it.
You don't need to waste a pardon
on someone who's going to jail for six months.
Like, if I was president and my friend asked me to pardon
his six mon... Hell, even if my mom asked me
to pardon her six months, I'll be like,
"Yo, Mom, you know I love you, but, uh, it's six months.
"Here's a carton of Camels and a burner phone.
"I'll see you in the spring. All right.
I'll see you in the spring."