Hints he’ll pardon late ‘Greatest’
PRESIDENT TRUMP is floating — like a butterfly — a pointless pardon to the “Greatest of All Time.”
Trump, who has already pardoned or commuted the sentences of six people since taking office 16 months ago, mentioned in passing Friday that he’s considering pardoning boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
“I’m thinking about somebody that you all know very well, and he went through a lot. And he wasn’t very popular then,” Trump said as he left the White House en route to the G7 summit in Canada. “His memory is very popular now. I’m thinking about Muhammad Ali. I’m thinking about that seriously.”
And, he said, he might enlist the protesting NFL athletes he’s been bashing for suggestions on other people he could pardon.
It’s unclear what exactly Trump would be pardoning Ali for, considering the fighter has no criminal record and his conviction for dodging the draft in the Vietnam War was overturned.
In 1967, shortly after converting to Islam, the fighter born Cassius Clay refused to be drafted into the Army citing his religious beliefs.
Ali declared himself a conscientious objector — saying, “I ain’t got no quarrel” with the Viet Cong.
He was stripped of his heavyweight title and convicted of draft evasion.
After appealing and avoiding jail, his conviction was overturned in 1971 by the Supreme Court.
“We appreciate President Trump’s sentiment, but a pardon is unnecessary,” Ali’s longtime lawyer and friend Ron Tweel said in a statement. “The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Muhammad Ali in a unanimous decision in 1971. There is no conviction from which a pardon is needed.”
Ali died two years ago after a prolonged battle with Parkinson’s disease.
The Rev. Al Sharpton scoffed at Trump’s proposed posthumous pardon, calling it “nothing more than grandstanding.”
“Muhammad Ali’s conviction, which was overturned in 1971, was based upon his beliefs and his religion and Trump can begin honoring his memory by stopping engaging in anti-Muslim and Islamophobic policies and rhetoric,” Sharpton said. “You can’t stand up for Islam while simultaneously denigrating it.”
Trump received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, including one medical deferment after he was diagnosed with bone spurs in his foot.
Trump told reporters Friday his team is “looking at literally thousands of names” of people who have come to their attention because they’ve been treated unfairly or their sentences are too long. “We have 3,000 names. We’re looking at them,” Trump said.
The President also said he may seek the counsel of athletes who have protested racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, addressing the underlying issue for the first time.
“What I’m going to do is I’m going to say to them, instead of talk — it’s all talk, talk, talk . ... I am going to ask all of those people to recommend to me — because that’s what they’re protesting — people that they think were unfairly treated by the justice system,” he said. “I’m going to ask them to recommend to me people that were unfairly treated, friends of theirs or people that