Nadler, 23 other Democrats want Trump's pardon of Joe Arpaio invalidated
WASHINGTON _ A group of two dozen Democratic members of Congress foreshadowed in a court case how they might fight back if President Donald Trump pardons someone for a criminal contempt of Congress charge _ just as the two political branches ramp up the battle over congressional oversight.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., a member of the House leadership, were among the lawmakers who filed a brief last week to urge a federal appeals court in California to invalidate one of President Donald Trump's most controversial pardons.
Trump's presidential pardon for Joseph Arpaio in 2017 allowed the former sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona to escape punishment for a conviction of criminal contempt of court for disobeying a federal judge. And now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is reviewing a lower court's decision not to vacate the conviction.
Nadler, Swalwell and the other Democratic members of Congress, in the brief, told the 9th Circuit that Trump's pardon of a contempt of court charge infringed on the power of the judicial branch to impose sanctions for disobedience _ just like a pardon of a contempt of Congress charge would infringe on the power of the legislative branch.
"A presidential pardon of contempt of court or of contempt of Congress is thus an encroachment on the independence of those co-equal branches of government," the brief states.
_CQ-Roll Call
