Reveling in his pardon powers, President Donald Trump said Friday he's thinking "very seriously" about pardoning former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, whose conviction was already overturned by the Supreme Court in 1971.
It's one of "thousands" of cases the president's team is reviewing, he told reporters as he left the White House en route to a world leaders' summit in Canada. And Trump said he's thinking about soliciting recommendations about other cases to consider from pro football players and other athletes who have protested racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem — a tactic Trump has fiercely denounced.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington, Friday, June 8, 2018, to attend the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Trump said that, "instead of talk," he's "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."
"I'm going to ask them to recommend to me people that were unfairly treated, friends of theirs or people that they know about and I'm going to take a look at those applications," he said.
Trump has been on a clemency kick of late, using his near-limitless power to pardon a growing list that includes a former White House aide, a conservative commentator and a former sheriff convicted of violating a judge's orders who campaigned with Trump in 2016.
Earlier this week, he commuted the life sentence of a woman whose cause was championed by reality television star Kim Kardashian West. Last month he granted a posthumous pardon to boxing's first black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson. Actor Sylvester Stallone alerted him to that case.
Trump told reporters Friday his team is now "looking at literally thousands" 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, calling the power to pardon "a beautiful thing."
Among them is Ali, who died in 2016.
FILE - In this Nov. 2009 file photo, President Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to boxer Muhammad Ali in the East Room of the White House. President Donald Trump said he is thinking "very seriously" about pardoning Muhammad Ali, even though the Supreme Court vacated the boxing champion's conviction in 1971. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Born Cassius Clay, Ali changed his name after converting to Islam in the 1960s. He refused to serve in the Vietnam War because of his religious beliefs, declaring himself a conscientious objector. He was stripped of his heavyweight crown in 1967, but his legal fight ended in 1971 when the Supreme Court ruled in his favor and overturned his conviction. He regained the boxing title in 1974.
"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. "He certainly, his memory is very popular now."
Ron Tweel, Ali's lawyer, pointed out that Ali has no criminal record.
"We appreciate President Trump's sentiment, but a pardon is unnecessary," he said.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about why the president feels one is needed.
Trump said last week also said he's considering commuting the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving 14 years in prison for corruption, and pardoning celebrity lifestyle guru Martha Stewart, who served about five months on charges connected to an insider trading case. O.J. Simpson, he said in response to a reporter's question, is not on his list.
The president has been operating outside the usual Justice Department clemency protocol, in which submitted cases are carefully considered based on their merits, and recommendations made. Instead, White House officials say, Trump has focused on individual cases that have caught his attention or been brought to him by friends or celebrities. He's been especially drawn to cases in which he feels a person's prosecution has been politically motivated — a situation that may remind him of his own predicament at the center of the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling.
Trump insisted Friday that he was also interested in clemency for regular people and those without high-profile backers.
He said that, "it's easier and people find it fascinating" to see him pardon the famous, but that he "would get more thrill out of pardoning people that nobody knows."
Yet Trump's suggestion that professional athletes help him identify cases only seemed to fuel concerns that those without star advocates will be ignored.
"Well, you know, if you think about it, that's really -- that becomes celebrity advocates. But they know a lot of things that we're not going to know. They've seen a lot of abuse and they've seen a lot of unfairness," he said.
The idea also sparked backlash from the American Civil Liberties Union.
"President Trump has spent much of his first 18 months in office degrading NFL players who protest police brutality and racial injustice. Today, he has tried once again to change the narrative about the work of those and other activists, betraying a fundamental misunderstanding of the cause behind these protests — and using racist dog whistles to do it," said Jeff Robinson, the group's deputy legal director.
The players have been protesting racial injustice and the high numbers of African Americans killed by police.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected international pressure to halt the war in Gaza in a fiery speech marking the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day, declaring: “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”
The message, delivered in a setting that typically avoids politics, was aimed at the growing chorus of world leaders who have criticized the heavy toll caused by Israel’s military offensive against Hamas militants and have urged the sides to agree to a cease-fire.
Netanyahu has said he is open to a deal that would pause nearly seven months of fighting and bring home hostages held by Hamas. But he also says he remains committed to an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite widespread international opposition because of the more than 1 million civilians huddled there.
“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself,” he said, speaking in English. “Never again is now.”
Yom Hashoah, the day Israel observes as a memorial for the 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its allies in the Holocaust, is one of the most solemn dates on the country’s calendar. Speeches at the ceremony generally avoid politics, though Netanyahu in recent years has used the occasion to lash out at Israel's archenemy Iran.
The ceremony ushered in Israel’s first Holocaust remembrance day since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war, imbuing the already somber day with additional meaning.
Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people in the attack, making it the deadliest violence against Jews since the Holocaust.
Israel responded with an air and ground offensive in Gaza, where the death toll has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and about 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are displaced. The death and destruction has prompted South Africa to file a genocide case against Israel in the U.N.’s world court. Israel strongly rejects the charges.
On Sunday, Netanyahu attacked those accusing Israel of carrying out a genocide against the Palestinians, claiming that Israel was doing everything possible to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
The 24-hour memorial period began after sundown on Sunday with a ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial, in Jerusalem.
There are approximately 245,000 living Holocaust survivors around the world, according to the Claims Conference, an organization that negotiates for material compensation for Holocaust survivors. Approximately half of the survivors live in Israel.
On Sunday, Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League released an annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report for 2023, which found a sharp increase in antisemitic attacks globally.
It said the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States doubled, from 3,697 in 2022 to 7,523 in 2023.
While most of these incidents occurred after the war erupted in October, the number of antisemitic incidents, which include vandalism, harassment, assault, and bomb threats, from January to September was already significantly higher than the previous year.
The report found an average of three bomb threats per day at synagogues and Jewish institutions in the U.S., more than 10 times the number in 2022.
Other countries tracked similar rises in antisemitic incidents. In France, the number nearly quadrupled, from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, while it more than doubled in the United Kingdom and Canada.
“In the aftermath of the October 7 war crimes committed by Hamas, the world has seen the worst wave of antisemitic incidents since the end of the Second World War,” the report stated.
Netanyahu also compared the recent wave of protests on American campuses to German universities in the 1930s, in the runup to the Holocaust. He condemned the “explosion of a volcano of antisemitism spitting out boiling lava of lies against us around the world.”
Nearly 2,500 students have been arrested in a wave of protests at U.S. college campuses, while there have been smaller protests in other countries, including France. Protesters reject antisemitism accusations and say they are criticizing Israel. Campuses and the federal government are struggling to define exactly where political speech crosses into antisemitism.
Follow AP's war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Israeli students listen to a lecture at the Testimony House, a Holocaust museum in Nir Galim, Israel, on the eve of Israel's annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel holds the day of remembrance each year to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide during World War II. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
People visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 5, 2024. The annual Israeli memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust of World War II begins at sundown Sunday. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
People visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 5, 2024. The annual Israeli memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust of World War II begins at sundown Sunday. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli students watch a virtual tour of the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau at the Testimony House, a Holocaust museum in Nir Galim, Israel, on the eve of Israel's annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Israel holds the day of remembrance each year to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide during World War II. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
People visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, Sunday, May 5, 2024. The annual Israeli memorial day for the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust of World War II begins at sundown on Sunday. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
