Speaker 1: At a campaign style rally last night in Phoenix, President
Speaker 1: Trump gave an angry defense of his response to the
Speaker 1: violence in Charlottesville, blaming the media for distorting his position.
Speaker 1: Trump jumped from topic to topic. He threatened to shut
Speaker 1: down the government over the border wall funding, and strongly
Speaker 1: hinted that he might pardon former Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff
Speaker 1: Joe r Pio, convicted of criminal contempt for intentionally disobeying
Speaker 1: a judge's order to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.
Speaker 1: Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job? That's what
Speaker 1: he should have had a jury. But you know what,
Speaker 1: I'll make a prediction. I think he's gonna be just fine. Okay.
Speaker 1: Trump said he quote won't do it tonight because he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to cause controversy. The five year old r
Speaker 1: Pio became infamous during his twenty four years as sheriff
Speaker 1: for a litany of misconduct, including aggressive enforcement of immigration
Speaker 1: laws by unlawful methods, investigations of his legal and political foes,
Speaker 1: and racial profiling. Joining us as Mark Osler, he's a
Speaker 1: professor at St. Thomas School of Law. Mark tell us
Speaker 1: what our PIOS stands for in the communities he has policed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's very controversial, and he's someone that you know, expressly
Speaker 1: invited confrontation with the Hispanic community in in the Phoenix area. UM,
Speaker 1: and he got it. You know that he um organized
Speaker 1: special projects, for example, targeting areas where people were picking
Speaker 1: up day laborers we're going to be uh you know.
Speaker 1: And and then of course enforcing Arizona's laws uh regarding
Speaker 1: immigration that were later largely struck down. UM. And so
Speaker 1: he's someone that invited controversy in the same way that
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump has and was divisive in much the
Speaker 1: same way. So if he was just if he was
Speaker 1: enforcing Arizona's laws, he didn't write the laws and he
Speaker 1: didn't strike up How what is the trouble that our
Speaker 1: peo got in? Yeah, Well, you know, the thing about
Speaker 1: the thing about law is that what's on the paper
Speaker 1: is only part of the story. The discretion that police officers,
Speaker 1: those in law enforcement and prosecutors have is often most
Speaker 1: of the story. And what what Sheriff Joe got in
Speaker 1: trouble for is um racial profiling. Uh that they they
Speaker 1: adopted tactics that made it clear that they were targeting
Speaker 1: Hispanics and also um broader systemic projects that targeted hispanics. Um,
Speaker 1: it really wasn't so much some of the more controversial
Speaker 1: things that he did, such as the way he ran
Speaker 1: the tense City jail and things like that, but had
Speaker 1: to do UM with with racial and ethnic profiling specifically,
Speaker 1: and there was a pretty damning report from the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, uh in twenty back. I think that. And
Speaker 1: then you had the contempt. There was an order that
Speaker 1: was put in place by the court out there. He
Speaker 1: was held in contempt to that and then held in
Speaker 1: criminal contempt just back in July. There's a process for
Speaker 1: presidential pardons. Has that been followed in any respect in
Speaker 1: our Pio's case? Um, From what our Pio has said,
Speaker 1: he said that he did not seek a pardon. That
Speaker 1: means that he hasn't submitted a petition. The rules are
Speaker 1: are you know, pretty clear about how this is supposed
Speaker 1: to work? Now? Of course, it's a constitutional power of
Speaker 1: the president, and that means that the president has the
Speaker 1: ability not to follow the rules if he doesn't want to. However,
Speaker 1: it does UM, definitely, Mark. This is something different than
Speaker 1: what we usually see with clemency. Well, what normally would happen.
Speaker 1: Let's he had put in a petition for for a pardon.
Speaker 1: What what is the process before it actually gets to
Speaker 1: the president. Yeah, the process is pretty extensive that it
Speaker 1: is reviewed by the staff at the Partner Attorney, the
Speaker 1: partner Attorney's official at the Department of Justice. Then the
Speaker 1: pardoner Attorney looks at it, passes along to the Deputy
Speaker 1: Attorney General. The Deputy Attorney General often as a staff
Speaker 1: member that previews it before he or she looks at it.
Speaker 1: From the deput Attorney General, it doesn't go all the
Speaker 1: way to the Attorney General. It then goes over to
Speaker 1: the White House to the office of the White House Council.
Speaker 1: It's reviewed by staff there, then goes to the White
Speaker 1: House Council, and then goes to the President finally. So
Speaker 1: there's there's really seven steps potentially a review here. So
Speaker 1: what kind of a message would it send if Trump
Speaker 1: actually did pardon our Pio. Yeah, it's it's significant because
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, it's not it's not really
Speaker 1: the same as Mark rich or Scooter Toby, where there
Speaker 1: were presidents they're helping out someone who is a friend
Speaker 1: or a supporter or a Uh, an employee in the
Speaker 1: case of Libby. Here, it's a statement issue that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it would really be perceived and I think
Speaker 1: correctly as Donald Trump saying, uh, you know, this is
Speaker 1: somebody like me, This is somebody I support. I support
Speaker 1: the values that he expressed in his work. And the
Speaker 1: reason that's going to be so controversial in a way
Speaker 1: that the statute, you know when he said Confederate statutes
Speaker 1: are beautiful things that shouldn't be taken down. Well, there
Speaker 1: we're talking about. Racism has existed a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: years ago, embedded in an institutive slavery with uh, with
Speaker 1: this issue, with this potential pardon, he's dealing with racism
Speaker 1: as it exists today, embedded in the mechanism of criminal law. Well,
Speaker 1: is our pardons sometimes issued for what seemed to be
Speaker 1: political reasons like this? Sure, yeah, I mean although very
Speaker 1: often when we when we label something a political pardon,
Speaker 1: we're really talking about about favoritism. That George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush issued clemency for some of the people who were
Speaker 1: involved in Iran contra. Uh, you know, we had Scooter Libby,
Speaker 1: we had Mark Rich, we had you know, we've we've
Speaker 1: had that uh, kind of pardon for a while. UM.
Speaker 1: But what I think is different about this is this
Speaker 1: political in a way that it's making a political statement
Speaker 1: about law enforcement. UM. And Trump's been pretty explicit, especially
Speaker 1: in what we heard in the rally last night, in
Speaker 1: making it clear that's what he's after. Our PIO is
Speaker 1: eighty five years old. He faces six months in jail,
Speaker 1: up to six months in jail, and attorneys who have
Speaker 1: been following the case doubt that someone of his age
Speaker 1: and with no criminal record would actually serve time. Is
Speaker 1: that Is that your or opinion? And what does that
Speaker 1: say about what Trump wants to do in pardoning him? Right?
Speaker 1: I completely agree with that. I can't see a judge
Speaker 1: giving him even the six months or a fraction of that.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think that's going to happen to
Speaker 1: a man of his age, and he's lost in election already.
Speaker 1: He's you know, there's not the danger of him continuing
Speaker 1: these activities. There's someone new in office who's who's changed
Speaker 1: those policies. UM. But uh, you know that does go
Speaker 1: to given that there really isn't much risk of this
Speaker 1: five year old man going to jail. UM, what's the
Speaker 1: message that Trump is really sending and I think it
Speaker 1: has to do with issues much deeper than any one person.
Speaker 1: I should say that our Pio told the Associated Press
Speaker 1: that he wasn't disappointed that Trump didn't pardon him yesterday.
Speaker 1: He said, they've just decided not to do with tonight.
Speaker 1: We'll have to see if and when it occurs in
Speaker 1: the future.