Parting Shot

Obama Encourages Trump to Continue Criminal Justice Reform

In a Harvard Law Review first.

President Obama has penned a lengthy essay that urges his successor to continue the current administration’s criminal-justice reforms. “Those privileged to serve as president and in senior roles in the Executive Branch have an obligation to use that influence to enhance the fairness and effectiveness of the justice system at all phases,” Obama wrote in a Harvard Law Review piece published Thursday. The 56-page article marks the first time a sitting U.S. president has published such an extensive piece of “legal scholarship,” the editor of the journal said. “I continue to believe that a historic moment exists to embrace the bipartisan momentum on this issue,” he wrote. “That kind of reform is good politics as well as good policy.”