(ATR) An Olympic champion may be the next pardon United States President Donald Trump considers.
Ahead of travelling to the G-7 Summit in Canada, Trump said he was considering posthumously pardoning Muhammad Ali. Trump reportedly has a list of 3,000 names from which he is considering exercising his right to pardon or commute sentences.
Ali would be the second boxer that Trump has posthumously pardoned this term. He announced a pardon for heavyweight Jack Johnson for a Jim Crow era crime.
"Look, he was not very popular then. Certainly his memory is very popular now. I'm thinking about Muhammed Ali," Trump said to assembled reporters before departing. "I'm thinking about that very seriously."
Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, was convicted in 1967 of dodging the U.S. draft during the War in Vietnam. He was subsequently stripped of his heavyweight title.
However his conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court and a blanket pardon was given to all draft dodgers by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Ali’s attorney Ron Tweel disputed the need for a pardon from Trump following his pronouncement.
"We appreciate President Trump’s sentiment, but a pardon is unnecessary," Tweel tweeted. "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 won a gold medal in boxing at the 1960 Olympics. Disgusted with segregation in the United States, Ali threw his Olympic Gold medal in the Ohio River shortly after his victory in Rome. He died in 2016 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.
Written by Aaron Bauer
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