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June 8, 2018
Prez Trump now says he is looking at "3,000 names" for possible clemency and will seek more names from NFL players
Another day, another round of clemency craziness thanks to Prez Trump. These two new headlines about what Prez Trump said today account for the new craziness:
- From The Hill, "Trump says he will ask kneeling athletes to recommend people to pardon"
- From Reuters, "Trump considering 3,000 pardons, including boxer Muhammad Ali"
Here is a little context from the Reuters piece (with one phrase highlighted):
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he is considering pardoning some 3,000 people “who may have been treated unfairly,” including late heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali.
“We have 3,000 names. We’re looking at them. Of the 3,000 names, many of those names have been treated unfairly,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before he departed for a Group of Seven summit in Canada. In some cases, their sentences are “far too long,” he said.
Trump said he was considering a pardon for Ali, who died in 2016. The boxer refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army in 1967, claiming conscientious objector status, and was sentenced to five years in prison. He never went to prison while his case was under appeal and in 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction.... It was unclear why Trump would be considering a pardon, given that Ali’s conviction was overturned.
Trump also said he will reach out to National Football League players who have been urging criminal justice reforms for their recommendations of people who have been treated unfairly.
The peculiar discussion of Ali and the olive branch of sorts to NFL players is sure to garner the most attention, but the statement by Prez Trump that some federal defendants get sentences that are "far too long" strikes me as most interesting and perhaps consequential. Specifically, in the on-going debate over federal statutory sentencing and prison reforms, this comment leads me to wonder (and hope) that Prez Trump might be convinced to be support of some statutory sentencing reforms before too long, if not now.
June 8, 2018 at 11:03 AM | Permalink
Comments
The Immutable Law of Political Irony. Mr. "Kill All the Drug Dealers," will loose them by the thousands.
Posted by: David Behar | Jun 8, 2018 1:50:46 PM
Doug I concur with you that Prez Trump may decide, hey, we need to change these drug laws. Way too many treated unfairly.
See on tv a guy was released from feds for 2 yrs, now he has to go back and do about 9 more yrs, approx... He was a career offender, how did they mess that one up.
Posted by: MidWestGuy | Jun 8, 2018 9:21:15 PM
Would to know where to send the name of a prisoner that was unjustly persecuted. Uncle is a retired football player from the Miami Dolphins. Presently now a football agent for the NFL
Posted by: Juana Paige | Jun 10, 2018 12:47:58 PM
Where do I sign up?
Posted by: Robert Smith | Jun 10, 2018 3:05:57 PM
@Juana Paige
I'd start with @realdonaldtrump on Twitter, #NFLpardons. While he probably gets tens of thousands of tweets a day, maybe hundreds of thousands, this is probably the first way of doing it. Make sure you retweet it to several other people. Later on, I'm sure you can get a more "official" method of contact, but Twitter is the medium of choice for the prez.
Posted by: Eric Knight | Jun 10, 2018 4:39:53 PM
If Trump pardons Blagovich after pardoning D'Souza and Libby, there are a bunch of other low level politicos with federal convictions for lying to federal officers about alleged campaign finance violations. It seems like every election cycle, there are a couple of handfuls of folks who can't help shading the truth to make themselves look a little bit better when their campaigns have committed a technical violation of campaign finance law.
Posted by: tmm | Jun 11, 2018 12:45:29 PM