‘Fox & Friends’ guest: Arpaio should get pardon, Medal of Freedom

Presidential historian Doug Wead came to the defense of Joe Arpaio on Friday, saying the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., should be pardoned and bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy asked Wead during an interview what would happen to Arpaio if he was sent to jail after being convicted on July 31 of criminal contempt by a federal judge in Arizona for disobeying a federal judge’s order on detaining individuals suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.

“He’d be murdered,” replied Wead, who once served as a special assistant to President George H.W. Bush.

“He served for 23 years as sheriff,” Wead continued. “But before that for 30 years in the FBI and the [Drug Enforcement Agency] when he went after the drug lords, the Mexican drug lords. They put a bounty on his head and on his family’s head. He has stood with the victims of crime.” 

{mosads}

“This is a tragedy, what’s happened to him,” Wead continued. “He should be in the East Room of the White House getting the Medal of Freedom put around his neck, not sent to prison to be assassinated and murdered, which is what would happen.”

The “Fox & Friends” host shared a graphic illustrating the hundreds of pardons granted by former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Wead pushed back, arguing a Washington Post headline saying that it would be a “rare but not unprecedented act” to pardon Arpaio was “fake news.”

“Presidents give hundreds of pardons, as you pointed out. Reagan gave 600 pardons. But what Obama did is the commutations, according to The Hill,” Wead said. “The most in one day, and 1,716 prisoners had their sentences commutated — federal prisoners — by Barack Obama.”

Wead argued that it “would not be” unprecedented for Trump to pardon Arpaio. 

“The only reason Joe Arpaio got this charge — and it wasn’t tried by a jury, it was a leftist judge — is because he supported Donald Trump for president,” Wead said.

As pointed out by Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple, “The actual headline of this Washington Post story reads, ‘Pardon for Arpaio would be rare but not unprecedented act.'”

“Contrary to Wead’s assertion, the story doesn’t argue that presidential pardons are rare — just pardons in a case like Arpaio’s,” Wemple said.

Trump indicated during a rally Tuesday that Arpaio may receive a pardon, and paperwork has reportedly been prepared. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that Trump would follow the standard process in deciding on a pardon.