Trump's pardon of Arpaio spurs more criticism, including from Biden, Paul Ryan

Biden said Trump's pardon of Arpaio shows "the truth of this president."

ByABC News
August 27, 2017, 10:48 AM

— -- Criticism of President Donald Trump's pardon of controversial former Sheriff Joe Arpaio is growing, with figures as different as former Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan weighing in.

Trump pardoned the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, on Friday night for his conviction on criminal contempt of a federal court order that he stop detaining people based on their immigration status. Arpaio's long record also included housing some prisoners in an outdoor "tent city" where temperatures reached the triple digits and using chain gangs.

Democrat Biden said Trump's pardon of Arpaio shows "the truth of this president."

"He won’t stop," Biden wrote in an opinion piece today in The Atlantic. "His contempt for the U.S. Constitution and willingness to divide this nation knows no bounds."

"Now he’s pardoned a law-enforcement official who terrorized the Latino community, violated its constitutional rights, defied a federal court order to stop, and ran a prison system so rife with torture and abuse he himself called it a 'concentration camp,'” the former vice president wrote.

House Speaker Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, expressed his disagreement through a spokesman and with milder language than Biden.

"Law-enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States," Ryan spokesman Doug Andres said in the statement. "We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon."

Following the pardon, The Washington Post on Saturday reported, citing unnamed sources, that the president asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions this past spring whether he would drop the federal case against Arpaio. Sessions told Trump it would be inappropriate for him to interfere in the federal case against Arpaio, according to the newspaper.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders did not outright deny that the pair had a conversation about Arpaio. "It’s only natural the president would have a discussion with administration lawyers about legal matters," she said Saturday. "This case would be no different."

As for lawmakers' reactions, Arizona's two Republican U.S. senators and the chairman of the Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans slammed Trump's pardon of Arpaio while others in the party largely remained silent on the matter into the weekend.

Here's a look at some reaction to the pardon.

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