Arpaio played probe for laughs...
WHERE'S THE RECORDING?
Sheriff Joe spits in the face of the DOJ and disregards Federal Immigration Laws...
By The Associated Press
Published: April 23, 2012
PHOENIX (AP) -- An audio recording has surfaced of an Arizona sheriff playing his refusal to cooperate in a racial profiling investigation for laughs at a fundraiser for an anti-illegal immigration group in Texas. He ridicules politicians who sought the probe and displayed contempt toward federal authorities who were - and are still - investigating him on two fronts.
The dismissive comments in 2009 by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio came as the U.S. Justice Department had already launched a civil rights probe of his trademark immigration patrols and the FBI already was examining abuse-of-power allegations for the sheriff's investigations of political foes.
In the September 2009 speech in Houston, Arpaio boasted that he arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants after politicians and federal investigators started to pick apart his patrols. He said he wouldn't cooperate with the inquiry, but said he would tone down the patrols - if he was proven wrong.
"But I'm not. After they went after me, we arrested 500 more just for spite," the self-proclaimed "America's toughest sheriff" said, pausing for laughter and applause.
In an interview Thursday, Arpaio defended his comments before Texans For Immigration Reform as a collection of humorous off-the-cuff remarks intended merely to show that he wasn't going to back down to critics.
"These are not official, under-oath speeches," Arpaio said. "It's strictly a speech that when I'm talking to certain groups, they like to hear what I have to say, because they know I'm under the gun." For his part, Arpaio said his only regret in making the speech was that he used the wrong figure for the number of illegal immigrants arrested after the civil rights inquiry began.
"It was wrong," Arpaio said. "It wasn't 500. It was thousands."
The sheriff also boasted of kicking federal civil rights investigators out of his office. And he acknowledged that most controversies were only to his benefit, pointing out that his re-election campaign raised $50,000 when the Rev. Al Sharpton came to Arizona to criticize his immigration patrols.
