WHY TRUMP’S ARPAIO PARDON SHOULD WORRY MUELLER

The president has just sent a clear signal that he has no problem meddling in the judicial process—and he won’t wait for his friends or associates to be sentenced before pardoning them.

As Donald Trump warned last month, amid news that the F.B.I. had begun investigating the Trump family’s finances, the president has “complete power” to issue pardons—and he isn’t afraid to do so. On Friday night, as a massive hurricane bore down on Texas, the president offered an official pardon for Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of violating a court order not to racially profile and illegally detain Latinos on suspicion of being undocumented. Even Republican lawmakers were appalled: Senator John McCain, who represents Arizona, tweeted “@POTUS’s pardon of Joe Arpaio, who illegally profiled Latinos, undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law.” House Speaker Paul Ryan denounced the move in a statement suggesting that the pardon might lead law enforcement officers to think they can violate civil rights.

For the president, however, the calculus seemed simple: Trump likes Arpaio because Arpaio likes Trump. America’s “toughest sheriff” was one of Trump’s most voluble supporters on the campaign trail; both men are “birthers” who frequently praised each other’s efforts to prove the unfounded claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States; and both share an affinity for inflammatory rhetoric about illegal immigration. (Arpaio famously housed prisoners in tent camps in the desert, where temperatures often rose well above 100 degrees; Trump praised him for having “kept Arizona safe!”)

The far-right appeared to be pleased with the decision. But the Arpaio pardon also sends a signal beyond Trump’s nativist base. As The Washington Post reports, Trump was planning to pardon Arpaio even before his case went to trial:

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