No matter what Trump does, it will end up in litigation.
Via BPR:
An Arizona District Court judge has not granted a motion to throw out charges against Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and may even try to deny it, despite President Trump’s pardon.
District Court Judge Susan Bolton is reviewing arguments filed that argue against dismissing the charges and has not moved forward with granting the motion filed by Arpaio’s lawyers following the full presidential pardon last month, according to LawNewz.
Arpaio’s attorneys argued that the “president’s pardon moots the case, and it warrants an automatic vacatur of all opinions, judgments, and verdicts related to the criminal charge.”
But papers filed with Bolton last week allege the “president can’t use the pardon power to immunize lawless officials from consequences for violating people’s constitutional rights.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department has backed Arpaio’s position and told the judge on Monday that “the government agrees that the Court should vacate all orders and dismiss the case as moot,” according to LawNewz.
While some contend that Trump’s pardoning power is “unlimited,” leading others to worry that he could use that power to pardon anyone, including himself, even if charged in the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Bolton is reportedly looking into counter legal arguments that the president’s pardoning power “is limited by later-enacted amendments, starting with the Bill of Rights. For example, were a president to announce that he planned to pardon all white defendants convicted of a certain crime but not all black defendants, that would conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.”[…]
In a scenario suggested by Constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, the judge could sentence Arpaio, who would then appeal, and the Ninth Circuit court could then affirm Bolton.
In this case, Bolton could cite a 1987 ruling in which the Court said, “The ability to punish disobedience to judicial orders is regarded as essential to ensuring that the Judiciary has a means to vindicate its own authority without complete dependence on other Branches.”
In an event such as that, Trump and Arpaio would have little choice but to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.