Joe Arpaio

What we're dealin' wit' here is a complete lack o' respect for the law!

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Persons of interest

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“”But even if it was a concentration camp, what difference does it make? I still survived. I still kept getting re-elected.

—Joe Arpaio on 'Tent City', his prison for immigrants

“” My daughter has adopted children of various ethnicities. … I got a black, a Mexican with Down syndrome even. And yet I’m the racist, I’m the fascist, I’m the Hitler!

—Arpaio’s response to people comparing him to Hitler

Joseph Michael Arpaio (1932–) is the former Republican sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who seemed to have forgotten that the sheriff's office is an agency for upholding the law, rather than a vehicle for promoting his own personal brand of hate. Few people can even name the candidates that ran against Arpaio; his "brand" recognition was astronomical. Each time his name got in the news for some new malfeasance, he won new voters; it didn't matter whether it cost the taxpayers millions. He set a new benchmark for "teflon" and could only keep dodging the fallout for so long, though; his 24-year reign of terror was broken in November 2016, when he was voted out of office. The former sheriff was pardoned by President Donald Trump on August 25, 2017. So much for being "tough on crime". He has been a supporter or member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association since at least 2013.

On January 9, 2018, Arpaio announced his intention to run for the United States Senate seat vacated by Jeff Flake, but didn't even make it through the primary. That combined with losing the 2020 sheriff election seems to have marked his end as a major figure.

And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling reporters!

Arpaio mananged to fight the news media in a way that you'd think El Presidente would take notes from by now.

In 2004, John Dougherty, a reporter for The New York Times, began an investigation into Arpaio's commercial real estate transactions (on the grounds that a county sheriff could accumulate enough money to invest in public property) and why the records were hidden from the public. As a result, Arpaio's home address was published, even though that's no surprise because it was already easy to find just by looking up government websites. Ironically, records of his commercial property were hidden but the location of his home wasn't. Arpaio eventually requested charges against The Times for revealing the location of his home on the far-reaching grounds that they had posted information posing a threat to an officer of the law. Since he had filed this claim ten months after all the hubbub had happened, the County Attorney's Office and the Pinal County Attorney's Office both did not prosecute, citing a lack of evidence and First Amendment implications.

Two and a half years later, still nursing a hell of a grudge, Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas eventually cooked up a scheme straight out of Scooby-Doo: they appointed "special prosecutor" Dennis Wilenchik to go after the paper, issuing grand jury subpoenas for the notes, records, and sources of the paper's editors and reporters for all their Arpaio-related coverage, even down to the IP addresses of people who read these stories. Superior Court Judge Anna Baca chided Wilenchik for trying to arrange a secret meeting with her about the case to begin with. Later, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, reporters for The New York Times, wrote a story about "breathtaking abuse of the Constitution", prompting Arpaio to sic his deputies to arrest them in the dead of night on charges of violating grand jury secrecy, which might sound like heavy charges but are actually misdemeanor violations, especially not enough to warrant an attack on someone's homes when they're sound asleep. Judge Baca dismissed Wilenchik's grand jury subpoenas, saying they had been obtained without the approval of a grand jury or the court. Lacey and Larkin would later sue Arpaio and Wilenchik, leading to a $3.75 million settlement reward to the reporters for the false arrests.

Undocumented immigration

See the main article on this topic: Undocumented immigration

Arpaio has taken a very hard line against undocumented immigration; so hard, in fact, that he declined to hand undocumented immigrants over to federal authorities for deportation in lieu of a stint in jail, and the sheriff's office was so busy trying to hunt undocumented immigrants that it had little time for anything else. The end result of all of this was that the Justice Department filed a civil suit against Arpaio in Federal court in May 2012, due to multiple civil rights violations primarily aimed at the Latino population of Maricopa County.

Civil rights violations

Arpaio, like a large number of Republicans, talks a good talk on cost-cutting. Unlike most of the prominent politicians in his party, however, he has actually cut some costs. For example, he has cut food costs in the jails of Maricopa County by starving jail inmates, cut building costs by jailing people in tents often 100°F, and has cut maintenance costs by letting the jails rot. Unfortunately, these cost-cutting measures have been more than offset by the massive number of lawsuits filed against the sheriff's office, resulting in more than $43 million paid out in settlements.

In 2008, a federal court ruled that conditions in the jails were unconstitutionally harsh. Arpaio, perhaps preoccupied with his fledgling clothing-design career, did not seem to get the memo; two years later, another ruling held that conditions had not changed and ordered him to get off his keister. Yet somehow, he kept getting chosen as sheriff.

Fake assassination attempt

From 2004 to 2009, Maricopa County paid $14.5 million in claims regarding the sheriff's office and another $6.4 million for claims against the jail health service for failure to diagnose, deliberate indifference, and suicides. The most outrageous one was a false arrest for a fake assassination attempt designed to boost Arpaio's re-election bid. In 1999, undercover deputies arrested 18-year old James Saville for plotting to kill Arpaio with a pipe bomb. On July 9, 2003, a Maricopa County jury acquitted Saville, finding that the bomb plot was an elaborate publicity stunt to boost Arpaio's reelection bid. In 2004, Saville sued both Arpaio and Maricopa County for wrongful arrest and entrapment, seeking $10 million in damages. In 2008, the suit was settled by Maricopa County paying Saville $1.6 million.

Using public office for self-promotion

Arpaio used the sheriff's office, including its official communication organs, as self-promotion tools, including but not limited to the publication of his political differences with the federal government and his opinions on Arizona political happenings.

Sometime in the 1990s, the underwear given to inmates in Maricopa County jails was dyed pink to prevent inmates from walking off with it. Arpaio used this as a pretext to brag about how well he has served his constituents. In 1995, he also began to sell this pink underwear as a souvenir item through an outfit called the Posse Foundation with funding from the sheriff's office; there were allegations that the money thus received was being mishandled. Unfortunately for Arpaio, use of the pink underwear in prisons came under scrutiny by an appellate court.

In 2007, Arpaio set up a radio station called KJOE in the basement of one of the jails, broadcasting operas, patriotic songs, and educational programming. This makes one wonder precisely what his position is on certain other taxpayer-funded radio stations with similar programming.

Sexual assault cases? What sexual assault cases?

See the main article on this topic: Rape

While Big Joe was busy rounding up his posse of Mexican hunters and pot busters, he may have chanced to overlook over 400 sexual assault cases, most of which involved children. Either these cases slipped under his nose while he was busy being a hero-cum-underwear vendor to all right-thinking people in Arizona, or he deliberately turned a blind eye since many of the victims' parents were in the country illegally. These revelations provoked calls for him to resign.

Birtherism

See the main article on this topic: Obama citizenship denial

In 2012, Sheriff Arpaio took up the cause of birtherism, arguing that President Obama's birth certificate and selective service (draft) registration card were fake. His volunteer "Cold Case Posse", in conjunction with Jerome Corsi, conducted an "investigation" and held an excruciatingly-long press conference in March 2012 to announce their findings; the documents were fraudulent and Obama was probably born abroad and was not eligible to be President. Their evidence was heavily dependent on the idea that the birth certificate's electronic form, as released online by the White House, differed from a "control" sample certificate they scanned themselves.

The day before Sheriff Joe's "Cold Case Posse" released their report, lead investigator Michael Zullo published a book on the topic, co-authored by a helpful Jerome Corsi.

Not content with hosting one excruciating dog-and-pony show on the subject, Arpaio and Zullo took a second stab at the same comedy-ready material in July 2012, adding some extra spice to the mix by insisting that sooper sekrit codes were hidden in the birth certificate and that some very old person (apparently not present at the press conference; go figure) could figure out what those codes actually meant. Not content to leave it at that, Arpaio and Zullo also asserted that black helicopters Hawaiian police were following Zullo around in an effort to harass him during his "investigation". Mind you, none of this has anything to do with the civil lawsuit being filed against Arpaio at all.

In December 2016, Arpaio and Zullo promised that an Obama birth certificate "bombshell" would be revealed at an upcoming press event. Perhaps responding to the public's recently demonstrated attraction to crazy shit, many TV stations streamed the press conference live. Hapless viewers were treated to a snoozy video presentation that plodded through the birth certificate's supposed "9 points of forgery" with lots of scientific-sounding jargon, and Arpaio crankily blaming the mainstream media for ignoring his past investigations.

School protection posse

In early 2013, after the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Sheriff Arpaio announced he would form an all-volunteer posse of "well trained", gun-carrying patrols to drive around town and protect the schools. Not one school has ever requested such services, of course, and many schools and parents were outraged at the use of volunteered and virtually untrained men "protecting" the schools. In February 2013, it was discovered that his posse included at least one convicted child molester and several men convicted of domestic abuse. The training for the team was given by actor Steven Seagal, who defended himself by saying, "I’ve put hundreds of thousands if not millions of hours into my weapons training".

Ersatz cultural criticism

Arpaio also challenged comedian George Lopez to "meet [him] face to face" after he took offense to some of Lopez's material about him that aired on HBO in July 2012. He was also supposedly shocked by the naughty, naughty words that Lopez used during the monologue, as well, even before the fact became apparent that Lopez was talking about Arpaio at the time. Yeah. Sure.

Lopez made Arpaio the butt of his jokes for a period, targeting the former sheriff in comedy routines across the country and in a profanity-laced tirade during his 2012 HBO comedy special. “And while we’re at it Sheriff Joe in Arizona — (Fuck) you," Lopez said in the special. Lopez’s rant against Arpaio continued for a couple minutes and included seven more utterances of the expletive.

Fascist sympathies

Because of his tactics, rhetorics, and brutality, Arpaio has been labeled as a fascist (or at least compared to fascists) by many who have reported on him, and he has attempted to dispel these allegations, albeit with little success and ending up making him look even worse (such as attempting to refute them by claiming that his daughter adopted children of various ethnicities, such as “a black” and “a Mexican with down syndrome”. Arpaio also attracted controversy by openly labeling his refugee camps for Mexican immigrants as “concentration camps”, and giving interviews to antisemitic tabloids (about five times). Perhaps the worst offense of them all proving Arpaio is a fascist was his willingness to have a photo shoot with the leader of the National Socialist Movement‘s Phoenix unit. The leader of said unit told Arpaio that they “have his back”.

Ousted

On November 8, 2016, Arpaio was voted out of office as county voters chose Democratic challenger Paul Penzone. Most of the voters who said "no" to Arpaio's bid were moderate Republicans. Penzone succeeded Arpaio as Maricopa County Sheriff on January 7, 2017.

Many employees of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, civilian and in uniform, were happy, too. Many felt Arpaio was focusing too much on his political career, and others were angry about the staffing shortage at the county jail; dwindling resources thanks to mounting legal bills from the racial-profiling lawsuit; and many were just plain ashamed of where they worked.

Not Done Yet

There once was a sheriff named Joe
Whose pink panties made everyone say, "Aiyo!"
His campaign stump
Gave Donald Trump
A hardon for a pardon; oh no!

“”By pardoning Joe Arpaio, Donald Trump has sent another disturbing signal to an emboldened white nationalist movement that this White House supports racism and bigotry.

—American Civil Liberties Union, 25 August 2017.

Because the concept of wingnut welfare is still very much alive and well in America, Arpaio had been considered for Trump's cabinet as Secretary of Homeland Security. Thankfully, Trump had the good sense not to appoint him.

What Trump did do, however, was pardon Arpaio for his conviction for criminal contempt of court on August 25, 2017. Arpaio took the opportunity to appeal for donations towards his legal fund and to declare his conviction was "a political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama justice department!" Meanwhile, several politicians, even including Republicans such as Paul Ryan, law professors, and political scientists, described Trump's move as rather troubling in its implications and ramifications, while some outright declared it a move that only serves to undermine the rule of law.

In January 2018, Arpaio announced he would be running for the US Senate seat to be vacated by Jeff Flake in the 2018 midterm election. While Trump's influence may have aided Arpaio in his campaign, his chances were slim when one remembered the last time a far-right authoritarian windbag tried to run for Senate. While Arpaio probably isn't a child molester, he still had no shortage of controversies for his opponents to use as ammunition. This bid would fail though with him finishing a distant third in the Republican primary to two women.

Shortly after that loss, Arpaio sued the New York Times for libel over a negative op-ed covering his crimes in office and political decline, claiming it would damage his planned Senate campaign for 2020 (which ultimately never happened).

On August 25, 2019, Arpaio issued a statement saying that he would run for sheriff of Maricopa County in 2020. However, he ultimately ended up being defeated in the Republican primary by his former subordinate, Jerry Sheridan, who ran on a platform of Arpaio's policies. Sheridan lost the election in November to the incumbent Paul Penzone.

In 2022, Arpaio attempted yet another comeback, this time by running for mayor of Fountain Hills, an affluent, deep red suburb of Phoenix. But third time would not be the charm either, as he was narrowly defeated in the election by two-term incumbent Ginny Dickey. In true Trumpian-style, Arpaio's immediate reaction to this defeat was declaring that he refused to concede the race and that he was going to consult with an attorney to explore whether to he could legally challenge the results. He ran for mayor again in 2024, getting just 15% of the vote in the nonpartisan jungle primary. Despite this, he insisted after losing that he was still "very popular, across this nation" and that he would not rule out another run in 2026.

External links

• Previous iteration of Sheriff Arpaio's "Cold Case Posse" report on President Obama's birth certificate.
• Frank Arduini's refutation of Sheriff Arpaio's "Cold Case Posse" report on President Obama's birth certificate.

See also

• David Clarke, his Midwestern counterpart
• US Immigration and Customs Enforcement - the group Ol’ Joe is taking inspiration from.