When President Donald Trump indicated on Tuesday that he plans to pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, he signaled a frightening disregard for the judiciary and the rule of law.

Not because of Arpaio's original wrongdoing, which Trump and many of his supporters probably don't consider to be wrong at all. But because Arpario openly, flagrantly, defied the order of a federal judge. And if this administration takes the position that it's acceptable not to follow court orders, it is no exaggeration to say that we are all lost.

Trump has shown disregard for the judiciary before. Recall his comments about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel ( This judge is of Mexican heritage ) in the Trump University case, and about U.S. District Judge James Robart ( This so-called judge ) in the travel ban case.

But his apparent willingness to pardon Arpaio is truly alarming.

I'll make a prediction: I think he's going to be just fine, OK? Trump said at the Aug. 22 rally in Phoenix. But I won't do it tonight because I don't want to cause any controversy.

On July 31, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton of the District of Arizona found Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County from 1993 to 2016, guilty of criminal contempt. He'd already been held in civil contempt by Judge G. Murray Snow.

As you might recall, in October of 2009, the Department of Homeland Security revoked the authority of Arpaio's office to enforce federal immigration law. Maricopa County deputies continued to do so anyway, detaining people based solely on suspected civil immigration violations.

I doubt that would get them in trouble with the feds today, but it was unequivocally out of bounds at the time. In 2011, Judge Snow ordered them to knock it off.

Arpaio's public response? I won't back down and I will continue to do what I've been doing, he said in a Fox Latino interview one of more than a dozen similar statements to the media quoted in Bolton's decision.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2012 upheld Judge Snow's injunction and the Maricopa deputies kept rounding up immigrants who were not charged with criminal violations and handing them over to ICE. In a 2013 news release, Arpaio admitted as much.

Snow went on to issue a permanent injunction. And Maricopa deputies kept violating it.

In other words, detaining people pursuant to laws that the sheriff's office had no authority to enforce, or holding them without reasonable suspicion of violating the laws that they could enforce.

And they kept doing it for years.

In the face of repeated court orders telling them not to.

THAT'S NOT OK.

The whole shameful history underscores how fragile the rule of law is. All it takes is one renegade sheriff and voters willing to keep reelecting him and the system falls apart.

Until finally finally Arpaio on July 31 was held in criminal contempt. If there was ever someone who richly deserved it, it was him.

Defendant knew of Judge Snow's order and received advice from internal and external counsel on what that order required, Bolton wrote. Not only did defendant abdicate responsibility, he announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise. The evidence shows a flagrant disregard for Judge Snow's order.

And now, less than a month later, Trump sounds like he plans to pardon him. It sends an appalling message. Ignore a federal judge's decision? Take the law into your own hands? Violate the rights of immigrants?

Sure, why not.

It sets us down a very dark path.

Without the threat of courts to hold him in check, consider what Trump might attempt. A travel ban that's explicitly a Muslim ban, for one. He's also previously mentioned mass deportation roundups, registering all Muslims in a database, even punishing women for having abortions.

For that matter, what would stop the president from, say, ordering the FCC to revoke CNN's spectrum license because it's fake news ? Tell me he wouldn't do that if he could. Or hey, why not go whole hog and suspend habeas corpus?

Courts are our bulwark, and I'm frightened of how weak they may prove to be.

Contact Jenna Greene at jgreene@alm.com. On Twitter @jgreenejenna.