President Trump Is Looking for His Next, Big Pardon Target

President Trump got a taste of the praise that comes from granting a pardon.

His acolytes loved him when he pardoned Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and loyalist, Dinesh D’Souza, after all.

He also hosted fellow reality TV veteran and intellectual equal, Kim Kardashian at the White House, where she advocated for the pardon of Alice Johnson, a 65-year old grandmother serving life for a series of charges involving cocaine trafficking and conspiracy.

Trump also granted that and got big props from Kardashian and her husband, Kanye West.

It was a big switch for somebody who has praised the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, who allows for the extrajudicial killing of addicts and drug dealers.

Trump really does love praise.

Recent reports are that Trump has a list of names of those he is considering pardoning or commuting their sentence. It’s a quick power fix, especially since he prefers doing things by executive order – sort of like a king waving his scepter – rather than waiting for the proper channels of Congress.

Earlier Friday, President Trump gave the next name for consideration on his list: Muhammad Ali.

“I’m thinking about somebody that you all know very well and he went through a lot. And he wasn’t very popular then. No, I’m not thinking about OJ,” he told reporters.

Seriously. Somebody brought up O.J. Simpson.

“He was not very popular then; his memory is very popular now. I’m thinking about Muhammad Ali,” Trump said. “I’m thinking about that very seriously.”

Yeah. Nobody even knew who Muhammed Ali was and those who knew him liked Cassius Clay better.

Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. military in 1967 during the Vietnam War, citing religious objections. As a result, he was stripped of his heavyweight title, charged with draft evasion and sentenced to five years in prison.

Harsh.

It’s a good thing we have a President Trump, now. He can totally clear all that up.

The minor details of Muhammad Ali’s case are that he never spent any time in jail, as the courts wrestled with his case. In 1971 the Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

An attorney for Ali, though, said Friday that a pardon from Trump was “unnecessary.”

“We appreciate President Trump’s sentiment, but a pardon is unnecessary,” lawyer Ron Tweel said in a statement. “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,” he added.

Missed it by this much…

Then there was the matter of then-President Jimmy Carter pardoning all the draft dodgers in 1977.

I’m not sure if Trump is working a theme or if Ali was just by chance. He recently granted clemency for Jack Johnson, another boxing great, posthumously.

Asked if non-celebrities – or those without celebrity advocates – had a chance at receiving clemency, Trump acknowledged that many applicants had been “treated unfairly.”

“We have 3000 names… many of those names have been treated unfairly,” he said. “I thought Kim Kardashian was great because she brought Alice to my attention… better than any celebrity I could pardon.”

Talking about how unfair the government is to people is apparently a big thing with Trump now, too.

Hopefully, he got the message about Ali and he won’t waste an unnecessary pardon.