Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Thursday he wants to see President Trump pardon more people, a day after he commuted the sentence of Alice Johnson, who was in prison for nearly 22 years.
“I wish he’d give more pardons,” Dershowitz said. “I think presidents ought to give more pardons to people who have gotten excessive sentences.”
“I like the idea of a president serving as ultimately the last authority on justice,” he said.
Dershowitz said he has agreed with every pardon Trump has issued, except the pardon for Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
“This president has a real gut for justice,” he said. “I know, I’ve discussed pardons with him.”
Dershowitz said Trump should staff a special office to consider the many pardon applications that find their way to the White House.
“He should set up within the White House a group of people who can look at these hundreds of applications, and when they say to him, ‘We want you to look at this one,’ he should at it. He should bypass the mechanisms of bureaucracy,” he said.
Dershowitz, a famed defense attorney, said some of his own clients received overly harsh sentences, such as heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson and Michael Milken, who was found guilty of securities fraud more than two decades ago.
