Trump floats pardon for Ali, says NFL players should suggest others

President Donald Trump suggested he may pardon late boxing legend Muhammad Ali in a discussion with reporters Friday morning before leaving for the G-7 Summit in Canada.

“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, referring to Ali. “He certainly, his memory is very popular now.”

Ali, who died in 2016, was convicted of draft evasion in 1967 for refusing to serve in the Vietnam war. That conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court in a 1971 decision. Then-President Jimmy Carter pardoned all conscientious objectors to the war in 1977.

Trump also suggested NFL players who have protested during the National Anthem ought to approach him with names of people who have been treated unfairly by the justice system and perhaps see them pardoned as well.

“I’m 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,” Trump said. “And I understand that. I’m going to ask them to recommend to me people that were unfairly treated and I’m gonna take a look at those applications and if I find and my committee finds that they’ve been unfairly treated then we’ll pardon them. Or at least let them out.”

In late May, Trump posthumously pardoned boxer Jack Johnson – the first black heavyweight champ – for his 1913 conviction by an all-white jury under the Mann Act, which made it a felony to transport “any woman or girls” across state lines for the purpose of debauchery.

–Field Level Media