Donald Trump Says He May Give Muhammad Ali a Posthumous Pardon

Donald Trump announced on Friday that he may feel compelled to give boxing great a posthumous pardon, because it seems like “pardon” may be his favorite word these days.

In 1967, Ali was convicted of refusing to be sent to Vietnam to serve in the US military despite having been drafted. While he applied to be listed as a conscientious objector, his classification was rejected.

On his potential decision, Trump said, “He was, look, he was not very popular then, certainly his memory is popular now.” He also indicated that he may have some consistency with future pardons regarding cases such as Ali’s for other “folks that have some sentences that aren’t fair.”

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However, the late Ali’s attorney, Ron Tweel, stated that this notion is entirely unnecessary, as the conviction was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1971 on that grounds that the Department of Justice had failed to fully explain that Ali’s reasoning for objecting to the draft was not based on his Muslim beliefs. In a statement, Tweel said, “We appreciate President Trump’s sentiment, but a pardon is unnecessary. There is no conviction from which a pardon is needed.”

As expected, there has been a great deal of brushback from other public figures, including Reverend Al Sharpton. Sharpton claims that Trump’s actions are “nothing more than grandstanding,” and that his past “anti-Muslim and Islamophobic policies and rhetoric” were objectively against Ali’s religious views. Sharpton pointed out Trump’s hypocrisy, saying, “You can’t stand up for Islam while simultaneously denigrating it.”

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While the practical objective of pardons is to overturn the sentence of an individual who is currently convicted of a crime, there is nothing to be gained from a posthumous pardon other than what could be deemed a symbolic victory. Interestingly enough, Trump also granted a posthumous pardon to another late boxer, Jack Johnson, and has expressed musings of pardoning Martha Stewart for her 2004 insider-trading conviction despite the fact that she finished serving her sentence years ago.

However, Trump has actually used his pardoning ability for real as well, having commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life-sentence on non-violent drug charges. This came at the behest of Kim Kardashian, no less. Trump said, “The power to pardon is a beautiful thing. I want to do people who are unfairly treated like Alice.”

While it remains to be seen as to whether or not Trump will actually follow through with the Ali pardon, one can’t help but wonder if this is simply a publicity stunt in an attempt by the president to make himself seem more progressive.