Roberts: Joe Arpaio says Jeff Flake's speech on Trump could be treason

Laurie Roberts: Joe Arpaio says Jeff Flake's speech on Donald Trump could make him a traitor to the country.

Laurie Roberts
The Republic | azcentral.com
Pals. Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Donald Trump.

Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold … Jeff Flake?

Maricopa County’s pardoned ex-sheriff and Senate candidate Joe Arpaio seems to thinks that Sen. Jeff Flake may be a traitor to his country.

This, by daring to criticize President Donald Trump this week.

No, really.

"I don't know if Sen. Flake should make some comments against our commander-in-chief,” Arpaio told 3TV's Dennis Welch, after Flake’s blistering rebuke to Trump on the Senate floor. “I'm not saying, it could be considered by some a borderline treason-type situation. I'm not accusing him of that.”

Noooo, certainly not. That’s why you brought it up, right? To not accuse him of treason?

Flake on Wednesday blasted the president for undermining the media – and the truth – and was especially upset that Trump has dubbed journalists “the enemy of the state”, a phrase made infamous by Russian dictator Josef Stalin.

Arpaio told Welch there should be limits on criticizing elected officials. (Cue the First Amendment, in a dead faint.)

"You gotta be careful when you blast the president on international issues,” Arpaio said.

Because it’s so much more damaging to criticize a president than to spend years calling into question whether a president is even legitimately our commander-in-chief. 

If Flake’s speech criticizing Trump was treason, what was Arpaio’s years-long investigation into Obama’s birth certificate?

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No, Twitter, Joe Arpaio didn't burn a dog and laugh (his men did)