Arpaio appears on 'Tooning Out the News.' It's brutal

Photos: Sheriff Joe Arpaio through the years

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez | The Republic | azcentral.com

Patrick Breen/The Republic

Joe Arpaio is asking U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate whether the U.S. Justice Department under President Barack Obama improperly worked to sway voters against him during his 2016 failed re-election bid for Maricopa County sheriff.

In two sets of memos that read like political manifestos, Arpaio’s attorney draws broad similarities between the Justice Department’s involvement in a long-running case against him and the ongoing special-counsel probe into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential race.

Arpaio is now running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Mark Goldman, Arpaio's attorney, urges Sessions to either quickly appoint a special counsel to probe the allegations or direct the Inspector General's Office to investigate the department. They also ask the attorney general to determine whether the judiciary has acted unconstitutionally or misused its powers.

“Concerns regarding rampant corruption within the FBI and DOJ, as seen leading up to the 2016 presidential election, require a thorough investigation, and prosecutions as deemed appropriate,” Goldman wrote in the June 1 memos.

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“We are aware of the letter,” Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, told The Arizona Republic in an email. “The department declines to comment.”

Arpaio, 86, was forced to relinquish his 24-year reign as Maricopa County sheriff after losing to his Democratic rival, Paul Penzone, by a wide margin.

As he was seeking re-election, Arpaio also had to defend himself in court, facing civil- and criminal-contempt charges stemming from a years-long racial-profiling case.

That case is the focus of Goldman’s memos.

Arpaio and his aides were found guilty of civil contempt by a federal judge, who then referred them to the Justice Department for criminal-contempt charges.

The announcement — which came a day before early voting began — generated negative headlines about Arpaio and damaged his campaign, one of the memos said.

“Straining credulity, this announcement came the day before early voting began in Arizona,” Goldman wrote. "The general election was less than a month away, providing critical time for media outlets to continually address the criminal contempt referral.”

But in effect, the Justice Department did not bring the charges. They were brought by a federal judge, who then had to find an agency to prosecute the case.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix recused itself. The Department of Justice agreed to take the case. If the department had refused, the judge could have appointed a special prosecutor.

Weeks before the general election, the Justice Department said it would file a criminal-contempt charge against Arpaio.

Goldman wrote that the Justice Department pursued a case against Arpaio, and then deliberately timed other key decisions against him to coincide with key election dates.

After relinquishing his office, Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt. President Donald Trump, a political ally, granted him a pardon even before Arpaio could be sentenced.

View | 22 Photos

Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio on night of his pardon by President Trump

Goldman wrote that Sessions must act quickly to investigate his claims because of the approaching midterm elections.

“An investigation will shine light, once and for all, on the obvious corruption within the DOJ and FBI while there is time to reverse the evil trends,” Goldman wrote. “If not rooted out now, the rot will spoil much of what is good about our nation.”

Paul Bender, an Arizona State University law professor and dean emeritus for the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, said the memos were unworthy of serious consideration.

He called them “political documents.”

"There’s absolutely no substance to them at all,” he said. “He seems to want to be relitigating the case against him that he lost, which is interesting, because he’s been pardoned for that. And then it seems he wants to be associating himself and his campaign with all the charges (involving the DOJ) … in connection to Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Trump campaign’s association with Russia, that they did all those things and it somehow hurt his re-election efforts.

"Talk about a stretch — that’s the longest stretch possible."

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Donald Trump and Joe Arpaio