Trump tweets about SNL, Obama drops a 56-page article

Obama drops knowledge on his way out of the White House.
 By 
Marcus Gilmer
 on 
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Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

While President-elect Donald Trump has spent his time recently tweeting about his disgust with Saturday Night Live and the alleged star power of his inauguration, outgoing President Barack Obama has been prepping a 50-page plus Harvard Law Review article on criminal justice reform.

The article, "The President's Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform," runs 56 pages in all and is part of the Review's latest issue. It tackles a topic the president has been especially vocal about in his second term.

Obama has a well-known history with the Review, having been elected its first African-American president in 1990. Now, Obama is also the first sitting president to publish work in the Review.


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Current Review president Michael Zuckerman shared his thoughts on publishing the piece on the White House's Medium page, saying, "We were struck, of course, by the honor of publishing the first work of legal scholarship by a sitting president — and in this case, a president whom we’re proud to count among the alumni (and former presidents) of our journal."

Others were equally excited to see the piece in print.

In his second term, Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison and has committed himself to pardoning and commuting and reducing the sentences of non-violent drug offenders.

As an added emphasis to show this has long been a subject close to his heart, Obama's first of 317 footnotes in the article is for his 1995 memoir, Dreams of My Father. It's like a mic drop on top of a mic drop.

You can read the story at the Review's website.

Topics Barack Obama

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Marcus Gilmer

Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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