Just a classic, classic story. First, you’ve got show-boating, right-wing, anti-immigration Sheriff Joe Arpaio (aka “America’s Toughest Sheriff”). He teams up with Maricopa County prosecutor Andrew Thomas to arrest County Supervisor Don Stapley on charges which seem pretty thin and arguably political in nature. (They tried to prosecute him last year; but those charges fell apart. And in this case a judge found they lacked probable cause for the arrest.) But Thomas had to recuse himself because he works with Stapley in the country government. And they couldn’t not come up with what in layman’s terms we’d normally call a real prosecutor willing to take the case. (They tried to get the prosecutor for the neighboring county to take over the case but she declined.) So they decided to import TV lawyers-cum-DC GOP power couple Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing as outside “special prosecutors” to take the case.
Sounds legit, right?
And if all that weren’t enough, fired US Attorney Paul Charlton is defending Stapley. So he’s had his own experience being on the receiving end of political corruption of the prosecutorial process.
