Bob Bauer, who was a White House Counsel to Obama, wrote a Lawfare post Thursday about a then-potential pardon for Arpaio.

Any president considering a pardon in the normal course would solicit and make publicly available the recommendation of the Department of Justice. The Department, however—and here we are speaking specifically of Trump’s Department—secured the very conviction for criminal contempt that would be the subject of the pardon. Now, a president can ignore the departmental recommendation: The power is his, of course, and not the Attorney General’s.  But presidents are sensitive to the Department’s recommendations, and for good reason.  The pardon power sits uneasily with the belief that ours is “a government of laws, not of men,” and the