Sheriff Joe responds to federal lawsuit
Jerome R. Corsi
DOJ announces plans to file complaint over alleged racial profiling
Attorney General Eric Holder today accelerated his campaign of attack against Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose Cold Case Posse investigated Barack Obama’s birth certificate and found that it probably is a forgery, by filing a “notice of intent to file civil action” over the Arizona county’s handling of illegal aliens.
The U.S. Justice Department has been alleging that Arpaio’s officers have been profiling people by race, and wanted an agreement that would establish a court monitor inside the sheriff’s office to clear every decision he would make.
Arpaio has denied the profiling allegations and refused to allow the Obama DOJ to usurp his authority.
After the federal announcement was made today, he succinctly told WND, “It’s politics,” and, noting that another news conference is to be announced shortly to reveal more information about the investigation into Obama’s own eligibility to hold the Oval Office, critics of the federal government suggested the timing was suspicious.
Arpaio also has told the DOJ to “prove it” if officials believe there is evidence to support federal allegations of systematic violations of civil rights.
In fact, today, just about the time the DOJ was notifying Arpaio of its planned action, the sheriff was releasing a new report documenting how his office has handled the issues the DOJ says are problem areas.
The sheriff suggested the DOJ reveal its evidence to the public, but federal DOJ officials said his refusal to allow a monitor of his decision-making process ended negotiations over the claims and the result would be a court case.
The formal notification was dispatched by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez, the chief of the DOJ’s civil rights division.
The DOJ alleged in a report last December that Arpaio’s office racially profiled suspects and based immigration enforcement actions on “racially charged” complaints.
Critics of the federal government’s intervention at this point suggested that the case has more to do with Obama’s concerns over what the sheriff’s investigation of Obama’s documentation will reveal than anything else.
WND previously reported that the White House and political left were attempting to undermine Arpaio, or even have him removed from office, because of the original Cold Case Posse investigation that concluded there is probable cause to believe there was forgery in the creation of the birth documentation Obama released from the White House a year ago, as well as fraud in its presentation as a genuine document.
The posse came to similar conclusions about Obama’s draft registration documentation.
That issue has to do with Obama’s eligibility to be president. The Constitution requires a president to be a “natural born citizen,” and that likely was considered by the framers on the document to be the offspring on two citizens of the country.
Some critics argue Obama is ineligible under any circumstances, since his father never was a citizen. But to the general population, about half of which believe Congress should investigate Obama, the allegations of “fraud” and “forgery” are more powerful focal points than an argument over the fine points of the Constitution.
Arpaio earlier told the DOJ he has no intention of quitting, and he’s looking forward to seeing the government’s arguments.
“They forget I have a four-decades long career in federal law enforcement,” he said earlier. He’s running for another term as Maricopa County sheriff right now.
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WND has previously reported the situation suggested White House coordination through the Justice Department, in an effort to remove from office or discredit “America’s toughest sheriff,” before his investigation reveals further unanswered questions about Obama’s past.
Among the pressure being put on Arpaio: Political operative Randy Parraz, a self-described “organizer,” has been running a determined campaign to oust Arpaio from office. Parraz, together with a small group of activists called “Citizens for a Better Arizona,” have tried to disrupt meetings of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to demand the oversight group vote to request Arpaio’s resignation.
Arpaio, an elected sheriff, cannot be removed from office by a vote of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
More pressure also came just recently with the disbarment of Maricopa County attorney Andrew Thomas in a complicated corruption case that WND has already reported was being turned against Arpaio.
WND reporting disclosed what the anit-Arpaio media narrative refuse to report: namely, that Thomas and assistant prosecutor, Lisa Aubuchon, were disbarred for filing criminal charges against Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe and two members of the Board of Supervisors that oversees Arpaio’s office – Mary Rose Wilcox and Don Stapley, both determined Arpaio foes.
The corruption charges against Wilcox and Stapley were never adjudicated after a Pima County judge dismissed the case due to prosecutorial misconduct.
But as many as 11 Maricopa County employees have been terminated in recent months for allegedly accepting bribes in a court tower construction scandal – one of the Thomas investigations that terminated by the counter-attack on Thomas that resulted in the disbarment decision.
And the anti-Arpaio media narrative refuses to note that a grand jury brought more than 100 charges against Stapley for a wide variety of alleged criminal activity, including failing to file financial disclosures to accepting expensive gifts such as three-week Hawaiian vacations and expensive ski trips for him and his family.
Now, Arpaio’s opponents in Arizona are pressing for a federal criminal grand jury to press charges against him for his involvement with Thomas in trying to root out corruption in Maricopa County.
Among other issues that raise further questions about the operating agenda is the fact that in July 2011, Dennis Burke, a prominent Democratic Party operative in Arizona, resigned as U.S. attorney, just as the House Oversight Committee and an internal Justice Department internal investigation began focusing on the role Arizona played in Fast and Furious.
Further is the general effort to minimize the impact of the scandal that allowed guns to be sold to unqualified buyers and marched across the border to Mexico.
Another resignation was Patrick J. Cunningham, the head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, who had announced he would take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before Congress, regarding Operation Fast and Furious.
Burke at the time he resigned was considered a possible Democratic Party candidate for the seat being vacated by Republican Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, or as a candidate for governor in 2014.
Another factor in the campaign: The AP republished an old story about sex crimes cases allegedly botched by Arpaio’s office. The writer said he’d been told by his editors to dig out the old material.
Arpaio earlier challenged a 22-page DOJ complaint against his department as nothing more than anecdotal and providing no proof.
Even at that point, he said, “If the Justice Department wants to take me to court, I’m’ ready.”
He pointed the significance, too, of the notification of the issues.
“We were first notified in March 2009 – in the Obama administration’s first 100 days – that the Department of Justice had begun a formal investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.”
http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/sheriff-joe-says-court-case-is-politics/print/