Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio gestures to the crowd while delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland. (John Moore) 
 
 As Joseph Arpaio’s federal case headed toward trial this past spring, President Trump wanted to act to help the former Arizona county sheriff who had become a campaign-trail companion and a partner in their crusade against illegal immigration. 
 
 The president asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions whether it would be possible for the government to drop the criminal case against Arpaio, but was advised that would be inappropriate, according to three people with knowledge of the conversation. 
 
 After talking with Sessions, Trump decided to let the case go to trial, and if Arpaio was convicted, he could grant clemency. 
 
 So the president waited, all the while planning to issue a pardon if Arpaio was found in contempt of court for defying a federal judge’s order to stop detaining people merely because he suspected them of being undocumented immigrants. Trump was, in the words of one associate, “gung-ho about it.” 
 
 “We knew the president wanted to do this for some time now and had worked to prepare for whenever the moment may come,” said one White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the action. 
 
 President Trump pardoned former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio Aug. 25. Here’s what you need to know. (Patrick Martin,Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) 
 
 Responding to questions about Trump’s conversation with Sessions, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “It’s only natural the president would have a discussion with administration lawyers about legal matters. This case would be no different.” 
 
 The Justice Department declined to comment. 
 
 Trump’s Friday-evening decision to issue his first pardon for Arpaio was the culmination of a five-year political friendship with roots in the “birther” movement to undermine President Barack Obama. In an extraordinary exercise of presidential power, Trump bypassed the traditional review process to ensure that Arpaio, who was convicted of contempt of court, would face no time in prison. 
 
 [Read Trump’s pardon of former Arizona county sheriff Arpaio] 
 
 Trump’s pardon, issued without consulting the Justice Department, raised a storm of protest over the weekend, including from some fellow Republicans, and threatens to become a stain on the president’s legacy. His effort to see if the case could be dropped showed a troubling disregard for the traditional wall between the White House and the Justice Department, and taken together with similar actions could undermine respect for the rule of law, experts said. 
 
 Arpaio faced up to six months in prison and was due to be sentenced in October. During his 23 years as Maricopa County sheriff, Arpaio was a lightning rod, in part because of his aggressive crackdown on illegal immigrants. He also was accused of racial profiling, failure to investigate sex crimes, poor treatment of prisoners and other instances of police misconduct. 
 
 To Trump, however, Arpaio is an American hero — a man who enlisted in the military at 18 after the outbreak of the Korean War, worked as a beat cop in Washington and Las Vegas and as a special agent investigating drug crimes around the world, then was elected sheriff in the epicenter of the nation’s roiling immigration debate. 
 
 Joe Arpaio's illegal-immigration crackdown made him a polarizing figure and an early ally of President Trump. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post) 
 
 Arpaio’s age weighed on Trump, some of his confidants said. The 71-year-old president could not stomach seeing an 85-year-old he admired as a law-and-order icon wasting away in a jail cell. 
 
 Trump’s spring inquiry about intervening in Arpaio’s case is consistent with his alleged attempts to influence the federal investigation of Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser. Trump also made separate appeals in March to Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. 
 
 [Trump pardons former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio] 
 
 Trump’s pardon of Arpaio “was his backhand way of doing what he wanted to do at the front end,” said Robert Bauer, a former White House counsel in the Obama administration. “He just wanted to kill the prosecution off. He couldn’t do it the one way, so he ended up doing it the other way. This is just another vivid demonstration of how far removed from an appropriate exercise of the pardon power this was.” 
 
 Presidents can set law enforcement priorities, but they are expected to steer clear of involvement in specific cases to avoid the perception of politicizing the impartial administration of justice. 
 
 Trump backed off the Arpaio case after being advised it would be inappropriate, but that he even tried is “beyond the pale,” said Chiraag Bains, a former senior counsel in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. 
 
 Bains said he believes Trump “has a sense that the chief executive controls everything in the executive branch, including the exercise of criminal power. And that is just not the way the system is set up.”​ 
 
 Trump and Arpaio became brothers in arms five years ago. As they saw it, the two provocateurs — one a celebrity real estate developer, the other a polarizing sheriff — were pursuing justice in the form of supposed evidence that Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent. 
 
 As caretakers of the false “birther” conspiracy, Trump and Arpaio relentlessly probed Obama’s birth in Hawaii and nurtured a lie to damage the legitimacy of the nation’s first African American president. 
 
 “There was no collusion,” Arpaio said in an interview Saturday. “I started my birth certificate investigation around the same time he did his.” 
 
 [Trump admits Obama was born in U.S. but falsely blames Clinton for rumors] 
 
 The Manhattan mogul sent Arpaio a fan letter and flattered him on social media. “Congratulations to @RealSheriffJoe on his successful Cold Case Posse investigation which claims @BarackObama’s ‘birth certificate’ is fake,” Trump tweeted in 2012. 
 
 Three years later, in July 2015, when Trump swooped into Arpaio’s hometown of Phoenix for the first mega-rally of his upstart presidential campaign, the sheriff returned the favor by testifying on stage to “the silent majority” that Trump had begun to awaken. 
 
 Backstage at that rally, Arpaio recalled, the two men talked about their shared birthday — June 14, which is Flag Day. Their friendship blossomed and Arpaio became a fan favorite at Trump rallies. “I had a gut feeling that he was going to win,” Arpaio said. 
 
 Even as Trump went on to win last November, however, Arpaio lost his reelection — and that was the least of his troubles. 
 
 Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against Arpaio last October. Trump was paying attention to the case and he called Arpaio to check in on him around Thanksgiving, according to the former sheriff. That’s when Arpaio told the president-elect that his wife, Ava, had cancer. 
 
 On July 31, Arpaio was convicted by a judge, as opposed to a jury. Arpaio and his lawyer, Mark Goldman, said they did not contact Trump during this period, nor ask anyone in the administration for a pardon. 
 
 “I didn’t ask for the pardon,” Arpaio said. “He wanted to do it because I think he understood what I was going through.” 
 
 Inside the West Wing, the pardon process was set in motion. Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, who had gotten to know Arpaio through their work on immigration policy during the campaign, advocated internally for the pardon, as did chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, according to people familiar with the deliberations. 
 
 The White House Counsel’s Office had quietly begun preparing the paperwork and communications staffers had started drawing up talking points when Trump foreshadowed his intentions Aug. 15 by retweeting a Fox News story reporting that the president was “seriously considering” pardoning Arpaio. 
 
 Around the same time, Arpaio received a call from the White House Counsel’s Office asking whether he would accept a pardon if one were issued. He told the presidential lawyer that he would, according to Goldman. 
 
 [As Trump ranted and rambled in Phoenix, his crowd slowly thinned] 
 
 The drumbeat culminated Tuesday when Trump returned to the Phoenix Convention Center — the site of the July 2015 rally — for a “Make America Great Again” campaign event. 
 
 As Air Force One rumbled toward Arizona, Sanders tried to douse speculation by telling reporters that the president would have “no discussion” and “no action” pertaining to Arpaio at the rally. 
 
 Arpaio said he was eager to attend the rally and visit with the president backstage, but decided, “I didn’t want to cause any harm or riots, so I stayed away, which really hurt me.” 
 
 When Arpaio heard Sanders say Trump would not talk about a pardon, he said he turned to his wife and told her, “Don’t believe anything you hear because I know how he is.” 
 
 Sure enough, Trump bellowed from the stage, “I’m just curious: Do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?” 
 
 The crowd burst into applause. 
 
 “Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?” Trump asked. 
 
 More applause. 
 
 “He should have had a jury, but you know what? I’ll make a prediction,” the president said. “I won’t do it tonight, because I don’t want to cause any controversy. . . But Sheriff Joe can feel good.” 
 
 Arpaio and his legal team did not feel very good the next night, when they read a CBS News report that Trump was being advised not to pardon Arpaio until after his sentencing. 
 
 Goldman wrote a two-page letter to White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II, sent on Friday morning, saying, “Hopefully this is more fake news,” and telling McGahn that a delay until after sentencing “would place Sheriff Arpaio in an untenable and unprecedented position.” 
 
 [Read a letter from Arpaio’s lawyer to White House Counsel McGahn] 
 
 Without a pardon, Goldman said, Arpaio could be “sentenced, handcuffed, given a ‘perp walk’ and incarcerated” and “left to languish in federal custody.” 
 
 McGahn did not immediately reply, but a few hours later, at about 6:30 p.m. D.C. time, another lawyer in his office called Goldman’s co-counsel to double-check that Arpaio would accept a pardon. A few minutes later, an email arrived from the White House with a single page attachment: an “Executive Grant of Clemency” for Arpaio signed by Trump in his thick, black script, complete with a golden Justice Department seal. 
 
 Goldman printed out three copies of the document and drove out to Arpaio’s home in Fountain Hills, a suburb of Phoenix, where the former sheriff was getting ready to take his wife to dinner at Arrivederci, an Italian restaurant, to celebrate Ava’s 86th birthday. 
 
 “Of course, his first question was, ‘Is this a fake document?’ ” Goldman recalled. “We know the sheriff has looked into fake documents.” 
 
 The Arpaios still went out for their spaghetti dinner. As of Saturday, Arpaio had not heard from Trump personally, but said if the president were to call he would advise him to take a lesson from his Arizona adventures. 
 
 “If they can do it to me, they can do it to anybody, including the president of the United States,” Arpaio said. Alluding to the Russia probe, he said, “He’s been under a lot of fire right now, him and his family, and I’ve been through the fire quite a while.” ||||| It was a Friday night news dump like rarely seen before: President Donald Trump's administration announced a series of polarizing decisions that had been under discussions for weeks, just as a hurricane bore down on the Texas coast. 
 
 Trump privately had signaled for weeks he would pardon Joe Arpaio, praising the former Arizona sheriff's loyalty and telling at least one adviser that his base wanted it badly. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Seb Gorka, a national security aide, was on the outs with chief of staff John Kelly after criticizing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on TV earlier in August. Kelly had told others Gorka had no future in the White House, and Gorka had aligned himself closely with now ousted chief strategist Steve Bannon. 
 
 And Trump's top advisers had scrambled to write implementation orders for the military transgender ban for several weeks, after Trump startled lawyers and advisers with tweets they considered ill-advised and had warned against. 
 
 The pardon, the exit and the guidelines all came on Friday evening, as a ferocious hurricane barreled down the Texas coastline, dizzying chyron operators and buzzing phones across Washington. White House aides and advisers said it was coordinated to handle polarizing decisions that were sure to alienate various constituencies. 
 
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 "With a natural disaster on the horizon, you have one shot at the public seeing the news and then they quickly move on to more important issues," said Mark Corallo, a veteran consultant who briefly worked for Trump's White House. "It is Washington PR 101." 
 
 The Arpaio pardon was the most contentious within Trump's White House. More moderate advisers and aides had tried to talk Trump out of pardoning the convicted ex-sheriff, who ran sweltering, punishing jails where inmates died and was accused of targeting Latino residents. Trump had floated announcing the pardon at a rally in Arizona Tuesday night, but was persuaded to hold off. 
 
 One White House adviser said it wasn't a "matter of if he was going to do it, it was a matter of when." So it was announced Friday evening even though sentencing was months away. 
 
 The move surprised top officials at the Justice Department, this adviser said, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to describe private discussions. 
 
 The pardon was met with swift and widespread condemnation, drawing comparisons with Bill Clinton's infamous pardon of Marc Rich. The two Republican senators from Arpaio's home state of Arizona, John McCain and Jeff Flake, suggested the move showed a lack of respect by Trump for law and order. 
 
 "The President has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law as Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions," McCain said in a statement. 
 
 Democrats were harsher. 
 
 "Joe Arpaio ignored the courts of law in order to systemically target Latinos in AZ. Definition of racism and bigotry," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter, adding Trump "ran to Camp David" to "use the cover of Hurricane Harvey to avoid scrutiny." 
 
 "So sad, so weak," Schumer tweeted, parroting two of Trump's favorite put-downs. 
 
 Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement Saturday that the Justice Department "found that for years Sheriff Arpaio systematically violated the civil rights of the people he was charged with serving and protecting. President Trump indicates that he approves of that behavior with last night’s decision, which will only serve to deepen the divisions in our country.” 
 
 Republican strategist Alex Conant, a former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla), said that while "there are a lot of Republicans that want to support the president," the pardon "goes against a lot of what Republicans have traditionally stood for." 
 
 Trump knew the move would rankle Flake and McCain and be popular with his base, said one adviser who speaks with him often. And Trump often saw the sheriff on TV defending himself and the president, and came to believe the conviction was unfair. 
 
 Corallo said those who disliked Trump would dislike him regardless, but the pardon would energize many in the base — and that the president acted well within his authority. 
 
 "It was a politicized persecution by the Obama Justice Department," said Tom Fitton, who leads the conservative group Judicial Watch. "The president has a very different understanding than the establishment class. He creates absolute hysteria in his opponents. Absolute hysteria." 
 
 Gorka's dismissal had been simmering for weeks, and several officials said it had to happen at some point. He was increasingly isolated in the White House, with many officials unsure what he did other than go on TV to praise the president. 
 
 Gorka issued a resignation letter that criticized the White House for taking a new direction and installing too many aides who didn't align with the president's "Make America Great Again" vision, imploring Trump to shift direction. But the White House quickly disputed that he resigned, even sending a note to surrogates so they would spread the message that the exit was not voluntary. 
 
 "Hopefully no one remembers Seb Gorka by this time next week," one White House official said Saturday morning. But others close to the White House noted that Gorka was well-liked by the president and is popular among the nationalists who helped propel Trump to victory. 
 
 Gorka did not respond to a phone call seeking comment. 
 
 The announcement likely to have the widest impact are the guidelines for his ban on transgenders in the military. It was another issue the White House knew it had to address but would create a firestorm when it landed. Trump had tweeted his decision to issue the ban in July without any policy guidance, and it caught even some top White House officials by surprise. 
 
 There was no clear word on whether transgenders already in the military could continue to serve or how the ban would be enforced. 
 
 The president, after his declaration, was persuaded in discussions to leave transgenders serving in the military alone, but the guidelines once again alighted a firestorm over a social issue. 
 
 Conant said with the changing direction of news, it is unclear whether dumping news on Friday evening — a longtime strategy — would blunt its impact like it once did. There may be some residual effect from news they hoped would wash away with the hurricane, he said. 
 
 "Controversies build over time," Conant said. "The announcements you made on Friday night, you can still be dealing with next week." 
 
 Emily Goldberg contributed to this report. ||||| While criticism of President Trump's moves could be expected from Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer (right), some Republicans such as Sen. John McCain also registered their disapproval. | Mandel Ngan/Getty Images Schumer, Ryan criticize Trump for Arpaio pardon 
 
 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sharply criticized President Donald Trump's Friday pardon of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his directive to halt recruitment of transgender troops Friday — just as Hurricane Harvey was barreling towards the Texas coastline. 
 
 "As millions of people in TX and LA are prepping for the Hurricane, the President is using the cover of the storm to pardon a man who violated a court's order to stop discriminating against Latinos and Ban courageous transgender men and women from serving in our nation's Armed Forces," Schumer posted in a series of tweets. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 "Then he ran to Camp David. The only reason to do these right now is to use the cover of Hurricane Harvey to avoid scrutiny. So sad, so weak." 
 
 In a separate tweet, Schumer blasted Arpaio, known for his aggressive treatment of Latinos in Arizona. 
 
 "Joe Arpaio ignored the courts of law in order to systematically target Latinos in AZ. The definition of racism and bigotry," Schumer posted. 
 
 While criticism of Trump's moves could be expected from Democrats, some Republicans also registered their disapproval. 
 
 A spokesman said House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) opposed the pardon. He was the highest-ranking Republican lawmaker to do so. 
 
 “The speaker does not agree with the decision,” Ryan spokesman Doug Andres said in a statement. “Law-enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States. We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon.” 
 
 Both GOP senators from Arizona, John McCain and Jeff Flake, also disagreed with Trump's pardon, which the president had floated publicly at a rally in their state on Tuesday. 
 
 “The President has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law as Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions," McCain wrote in a statement. 
 
 McCain, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, also knocked Trump's directive to ban transgender people from joining the military. It gave Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wide latitude to determine whether already-enlisted transgender troops would be allowed to continue to serve. 
 
 "It would be a step in the wrong direction to force currently serving transgender individuals to leave the military solely on the basis of their gender identity rather than medical and readiness standards that should always be at the heart of Department of Defense personnel policy," McCain said in a statement. "The Pentagon’s ongoing study on this issue should be completed before any decisions are made with regard to accession." 
 
 Flake limited his criticism to Trump's Apraio pardon, albeit more tepidly than McCain. 
 
 "Regarding the Arpaio pardon, I would have preferred that the president honor the judicial process and let it take its course," Flake tweeted on Friday night. 
 
 California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, also denounced the pardon. 
 
 “The Justice Department ... found that for years Sheriff Arpaio systematically violated the civil rights of the people he was charged with serving and protecting," Feinstein said in a statement Saturday. "President Trump indicates that he approves of that behavior with last night’s decision, which will only serve to deepen the divisions in our country.” 
 
 And Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, blasted both of Trump’s Friday actions. “Ultimately, his decisions signal that Trump allies are above the law and make it clear that bigotry will be rewarded and condoned by the Trump administration,” she said in a statement Saturday. 
 
 Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
– President Trump's intervention in Joe Arpaio's fate dates back well before he announced the controversial pardon of the former Arizona sheriff on Friday, reports the Washington Post. Citing White House sources, the Post reports that Trump reached out to AG Jeff Sessions this past spring to see if the government could drop the criminal case against Arpaio, but "was advised that would be inappropriate." Sarah Huckabee Sanders addressed Trump's inquiry, calling it "only natural the president would have a discussion with administration lawyers about legal matters." Trump acquiesced, but planned to issue the pardon in the event of a conviction, which came at the end of July. "We knew the president wanted to do this for some time now," one White House staffer tells the Post. Another adviser tells Politico it wasn't a "matter of if he was going to do it, it was a matter of when." Despite his earlier inquiry, Trump issued the pardon without telling the Justice Department, which had no comment; Politico characterizes top officials there as surprised by the move. A former Obama counsel calls it "his backhand way of doing what he wanted to do at the front end," and a "vivid demonstration of how far removed from an appropriate exercise of the pardon power this was." Republicans including Arizona's senators have condemned the pardon, and Paul Ryan has joined their number, reports Politico, saying via a rep that he "does not agree with the decision." As for Arpaio himself, whom the Post characterizes as Trump's brother in arms in birtherism, "I didn't ask for the pardon," he says. "He wanted to do it because I think he understood what I was going through."