"United States District Judge Susan R. Bolton found Mr. Arpaio, 85, guilty of criminal contempt of court, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail." 

If criminal contempt of court is such a "nothing burger" why did he seek and accept a pardon from Trump?

Our legal system depends on compliance with court orders ranging from search warrants to injunctions, particularly for law enforcement officials. Arpaio put himself above the law while claiming to enforce it.

Arpaio lost a civil case in 2013, when the court ruled that his office had systematically violated the constitutional rights of Latinos by stopping people based on racial profiling, and detaining them based solely on the suspicion that they were in the country illegally. The court ordered him to stop these practices, he ignored the court for years.

If the president can pardon anyone who defies court orders to enforce constitutional protections, then those constitutional protections are rendered meaningless.