Dan McLaughlinVerified account

2. If you think Arpaio was acting in a way that's completely indefensible in the absence of a court order, there's no reason to use pardon.

3. Trump clearly doesn't think that (nor does much of his base).

4. From that standpoint, Arpaio's conviction is political: a court rejected the policy, and used its power to stop it.

5. Arpaio was not convicted of any individual crime or of breaking a criminal law, but of using his office to defy a federal judge.

6. Of course defying a federal judge is illegal! Otherwise, we would not be discussing the pardon power.

7. That raises the 2d issue, which is whether it undermines the rule of law to use a pardon to let a state official off for defying a fed ct

8. This is where liberals should picture, in place of Arpaio, someone pursuing a cause that liberals sympathize with vs a hostile judge.

9. Pardons of that nature were, IIRC, used by Jefferson for violators of the Alien & Sedition Acts. Carter pardoned Vietnam draft dodgers.

10. Obama, of course, pardoned a Puerto Rican terrorist. (Extreme case: South Africa releasing Mandela, who was guilty under the law.)

11. I'm skeptical of using the pardon power this way, but if you think a federal judge went too far in a fight over government powers...

12. ...it becomes easier to view the pardon as the Executive's natural weapon to fight back vs the courts. Which the Founders anticipated.

13. Some of the outrage here is simply view that Arpaio had no possible justification, of course. Fair enough.

14. But the reflexive view that the Executive should have no place to use pardons to undermine judicial supremacy is too facile.

15. This isn't Terry McAuliffe dispensing pardons in bulk just to get people on the voter rolls. This is fundamentally a policy dispute.

16. Not having closely followed the Arpaio arguments, I'm skeptical of the pardon, and no fan of Arpaio. But there are weighty issues here.

17. As usual, we shouldn't be quick to toss over the proper rules of the road on thorny issues just because it's Trump & he's being Trump.

Going to assume the rest of this thread and providing rationalization for the pardon, hope it makes you feel good

I'd not expect you to read before commenting.

Having now read, you did exactly what I thought you would. Classic NRO

This is a balanced, reasoned view. You just aren't used to reading intellectually honest writing.