美国有线新闻 CNN 特朗普执意赦免铁血警长 曾对移民进行非法清扫（在线收听）

AZUZ: Another breaking news story from Friday night involved President Trump's pardon of a man who used to be a sheriff in the state of Arizona.

His name is Joe Arpaio. He served for 24 years as the sheriff of Maricopa County. Arpaio had called himself America's toughest sheriff and he became widely known for his tough stance on crime, for a controversial outdoor jail he established and for cracking down on illegal immigration.

But Arpaio was accused of racially discriminating against Latinos, and in 2011, a judge ruled that Arpaio's office was unfairly stopping Latino drivers more often than non-Latino drivers, and that it was doing that on the suspicion that the Latinos were in the country illegally. The court ordered Sheriff Arpaio to stop the practice, but he said he'd done nothing wrong and would continue his work.

Late last month, a federal judge found Arpaio guilty of refusing to obey a court order. He was scheduled to be sentenced in early October, possibly to up to six months of jail time. But President Trump's pardon, also known as executive clemency means the 85-year-old former sheriff will be forgiven of the crime and receive no punishment.

Why was he pardoned? The White House says that throughout his time as sheriff, Arpaio protected the public from crime and illegal immigration and that after 50 years of admirable service, he's a worthy candidate for a pardon.

Arpaio, a Republican who's strongly supported President Trump's candidacy for office, said his conviction was a, quote, political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama Justice Department. Prosecution of Arpaio's case begun when Democratic President Barack Obama was in office.

Critics of the pardon called it unacceptable and said no one is above the law. And some spoke out against the timing of it as the pardon was announced while Hurricane Harvey was closing in on Texas and the focus of news coverage at that time.

This is the first pardon by President Trump and American leaders are given the power to make pardons by Article II Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.