President Donald Trump announced on Friday evening that he was granting a presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, a controversial former Arizona sheriff who had been convicted of of criminal contempt of court in a racial profiling case.

The decades long case brought against Arpaio, which was started under President George W. Bush’s Justice Department, found the former sheriff “oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in U.S. history.”

Morning Joe took on news of the pardoning Monday morning, with Joe Scarborough noting that “the list of horrors this guy has implemented is staggering,” before pointing out that the Arizona law enforcement community “hates Arpaio” because of “he’s been a complete thug and has punished people basically doing some things amounting to torture.”

New York Times reporter Nick Confessore added that the investigation began under the Bush Justice Department, correcting Arpaio’s tweet that it was an “Obama witch hunt.”

“The list of things that he has done include allowing a backlog of dozens of cases of child abuse to go dark because the people were the people of immigrants and the kids were the kids of immigrants,” Confessore added, before comparing Arpaio to Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee, also a Trump-ally.

Mike Barnicle mentioned the Phoenix New Times, a paper that has covered Arpaio for years, that compiled a “list of outrageous incidents involving Sheriff Arpaio’s tenure” in a jaw-dropping tweet-storm.

“Half of the things on the list are absolutely shocking,” Barnicle said. “He’s running a concentration camp. That’s basically what he was doing.”

“And Donald Trump mistakes this for being tough on law and order,” Scarborough added.

“This is obvious to Democrats and Republicans alike that this guy is a complete thug, he doesn’t respect the rule of law,” Scarborough continued before making a grave conclusion:

“Yes, he had the authority to do this. But if articles of impeachment, years down the road, are ever brought up against [Trump], these are the sort of things that are going to be attached in abuse of powers.”

[image via screengrab]

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