For such a tough guy, Arpaio himself is no slouch when it comes to whining about his treatment under the rule of law, going so far as to call his contempt conviction the result of a "political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama justice department."
In an understated yet blistering tweetstorm and a Washington Post piece, Andrew Case, who clerked for the judge who issued the court order that Arpaio flouted, undercuts the sheriff's outrage at the same justice system he supposedly upheld. Arpaio repeatedly attacked Judge G. Murray Snow as a liberal who went after Arpaio out of political bias. The reality is anything but, says Case:
"It has been widely reported that Snow was appointed by George W. Bush; that is not the full extent of his conservatism. He had a desk blotter from the Romney Institute. He spoke favorably of Justice Antonin Scalia's jurisprudence. While we had little opportunity to talk electoral politics, I would guess he was no fan of President Barack Obama.
Snow believed in the rule of law and the fair application of law. During my clerkship year, from September 2011 through September 2012, he heard foreclosure cases, prisoner petitions and many prosecutions of immigrants. A liberal judge could have found loopholes to save a person's house, spring a prisoner or give an immigrant a second chance, but Snow did not: He followed the law....
He treated Arpaio exceptionally fairly throughout the trial. When the plaintiffs presented strong evidence that Arpaio's department mainly stopped Hispanics, Snow emphasized that the lawsuit could not prevail unless they also proved that that was Arpaio's intent. When it was revealed that Arpaio's office had improperly deleted thousands of emails responsive to document requests, Snow ruled only that he "may" take the fact under consideration at trial. And when Snow discovered a procedural issue that could have merited his recusal, he called a hearing, and both sides asked him to stay on the case."
