President Donald Trump on Friday said he’s considering a posthumous pardon for boxing champ Muhammad Ali, who was convicted in 1967 of refusing military service in the Vietnam War.
"The power to pardon is a beautiful thing," Trump told reporters as he prepared to leave for the G-7 meeting in Canada. "You got to get it right. You’ve got to get the right people. I am looking at Muhammad Ali."
Trump has significantly ramped up the use of his power to offer legal reprieves, announcing last week a pardon for controversial conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, while also expressing interest in commuting the sentence of disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and possibly pardoning TV personality Martha Stewart.
On Wednesday, he commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old woman who was serving life in prison in 1996 for a non-violent drug offense, after reality TV star Kim Kardashian West visited the White House of Johnson’s behalf.
"Those are the famous people and in one way it’s easier … but I want to do people that are unfairly treated like an Alice," referring to his decision this week to offer clemency to Johnson.
Though the specifics of any pardon for Ali are unclear, the boxer in 1967 was stripped of his heavyweight title and sentenced to five years in prison for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971. He died in 2016.
Ali – an outspoken social justice advocate who converted to Islam in the 1960s – criticized anti-Muslim rhetoric from presidential hopefuls in 2015, though he did not specifically name Trump who at the time had proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S.
Despite Ali’s comments, Trump has tweeted his affection for the boxer, including a photo of him presenting Ali with a humanitarian award at the United Cerebral Palsy dinner in 2001.
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