Joe Arpaio investigates his political opponents and brings false charges against them–that much we know. Whether those actions are crimes has not been proven, nor will it be now that the Justice Department has closed its lengthy criminal investigation of Arpaio. For more on that story, you can read about it at US News and World Report.
While we don’t have inside information on the criminal investigation, it is almost certain that same allegations that led to the disbarment of former Maricopa’s County Attorney, Andrew Thomas are involved here. Arpaio is not out of the woods yet. There is a large ongoing consolidated federal civil lawsuit against Arpaio and others on behalf of individuals alleging that they were unjustly targeted in bogus politically-motivated criminal investigations by Maricopa County law enforcement and Joe Arpaio in particular.
The criminal investigation is not to be confused with the federal civil lawsuit against Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which is ongoing. That lawsuit alleges racial profiling and mistreatment of minority prisoners.
The riffraff at ORYR take this to mean that the Sheriff has cut a deal to stop birthering.
Like Clockwork
Yeeeaaaahhhhhhh… I’m thinking the Arpoids shouldn’t be popping any champagne corks just yet.
My neighbors second cousin’s oldest daughter has a teacher who knows a bus driver that overheard the FBI’s wife tell a clerk that Sherriff Joe cut a deal to drop his birther mania in exchange for a job with WND. Take that to the bank.
Correct me I’m wrong, lawyers, but my take on it is that the DOJ didn’t have a strong enough case to guarantee a win, so they decided to put resources into what they thought they *could* win.
I’m trying to figure out why it took FOUR YEARS to clear him. Something mighty strange there.
Like what?
I wouldn’t use the word “cleared.” That word might be appropriate if he wins the Donahoe lawsuit.
Good point! There is a vast difference between being “cleared” and simply not being able to come up with enough concrete evidence to substantiate criminal charges…
You realise that if you are correct and it really has taken 4 years to clear him, then it wouldn’t have been under the Obama administration that operations to investigate him started?
Corsi has an article up on WND about the Feds dropping the charges. It has a subtle undertone of drawing connections between this and Arapio’s (sham) posse investigation without actually saying anything specific. Seems to me Corsi is between a rock and a hard place on this.
Corsi can’t openly suggest any alleged underhand AG/Arpaio deal involving dropping or decelerating of the posse investigation without well and truly throwing Arpaio under a bus which Corsi probably isn’t intending to do until early next year after Obama has been re-elected.
Then again Corsi is disingenuous enough to invent something along the lines of a vague notion that the AG has dropped the investigation into Arpaio while merely ‘hoping and praying’ that Arpaio will be decent about it in return and voluntarily ‘go easy’ on Obama’s eligibility investigation.
A slight correction/clarification: The Feds did not “drop” any criminal charges because they never filed any and they didn’t “clear” Arpaio. All they said was that they had closed the investigation.
The U.S. Attrorney explains the decision in this letter to the Maricopa County Attorney:
http://www.azcentral.com/ic/pdf/arpaio-doj-montgomery-letter.pdf
Corsi is dreaming if he thinks Arpaio’s legal problems azre over.
Just look at the Lance Armstrong case. His Federal Investigation was closed in February.
Quite right. I used drop the ‘investigation’ in the second and third paragraphs and that is what I intended to use throughout. Bit of a rush.
I understand. (See my typo!)
Here is a good article from this morning’s Arizona Republic about how and why the decision was made:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/08/31/20120831arpaio-case-feds-unraveled.html
And, yes, the investigation did begin under the Bush Administration.
After a Maricopa County law enforcement agency conducted a six-month forensic examination which determined that the image of Obama’s alleged 1961 Certificate of Live Birth posted to a government website in April, 2011 is a digital fabrication and that it did not originate from a genuine paper document, arguments from an Obama eligibility lawyer during a recent New Jersey ballot challenge hearing reveals the image was not only a fabrication, but that it was likely part of a contrived plot by counterfeiters to endow Obama with mere political support while simultaneously making the image intentionally appear absurd and, therefore, invalid as evidence toward proving Obama’s ineligibility in a court of law.
Taking an audacious and shocking angle against the constitutional eligibility mandate, Obama’s lawyer, Alexandra Hill, admitted that the image of Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery and made the absurd claim that, therefore, it cannot be used as evidence to confirm his lack of natural born citizenship status. Therefore, she argued, it is “irrelevant to his placement on the ballot”.
Hill went on to contort reasoning by implying that Obama needs only invoke his political popularity, not legal qualifications, in order to be a candidate.
http://www.teapartytribune.com/2012/04/13/obama-lawyer-admits-forgery-but-disregards-image-as-indication-of-obamas-ineligibility-damage-control/
Excellent work, Justin! You’ve demonstrated that a birther lie, even one that has been objectively proven to be a lie and acknowledged as such by leaders in the movement, has a life of its own and is constanlty being reborn in the seething brains of the ignorant and the bigoted.
We, who are about to win the election, salute you.
I see this tea party group just copied the Daily Pen article that claims she said something but she never actually said it. Apparently ThisJustin never actually watched the videos.
Remarkable! A tea-bagging birther who doesn’t fact-check?! Will wonders never cease!
Your comment would have been a lot more interesting if it were true.
as if birfers actually care whether their smears have been debunked. simply put, we’re just talking about spam — and the trolls that love it. zombie spam in particular that birfers traffic in will continue to stink up the intertubes wherever its target is discussed and as long as that target is deemed a threat.
Dude, even ultra-super-duper-die-hard birther “RacerJim” admitted that he was wrong about that over on ORYR when someone asked him to quote Ms Hill verbatim from the hearing video.
Don’t be more Catholic than the Pope, man!