After a three-year investigation, the Justice Department has accused Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., and longtime darling of the anti-immigrant crowd, of “unconstitutional policing” and creating a “pervasive culture of bias” against Latinos.

So what did Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, the sheriff’s chosen candidate for president, have to say? “These people are out after Sheriff Joe,” he told Fox News while campaigning in Iowa. He said he hadn’t read the report but vowed that if he was elected he would keep the federal government’s hands off the states, condemning the Justice Department for suing Arizona, Alabama and other states for their extremist anti-immigrant laws.

The Justice Department’s findings are horrible but not surprising. In a letter released Thursday, Thomas Perez, the assistant attorney general of the civil rights division, said that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office engaged in “unconstitutional policing” at every level, from deputies to the sheriff himself, racially profiled Latinos and made unlawful stops, detentions and arrests of Latinos.

It backs up those charges with tens of thousands of pages of evidence and interviews with more than 400 people, including 75 current and former personnel in the sheriff’s office.