US President Donald Trump has said he may pardon boxing legend Muhammad Ali for a draft-dodging conviction, even though it has already been overturned.

Mr Trump told reporters before he left the White House for the G7 summit that he was "thinking about" the late boxer and some others "very seriously".

Ali was convicted in 1967 after refusing to fight in the Vietnam War.

But a lawyer for his family said it was "unnecessary" as Ali was pardoned by the Supreme Court in 1971.

Have you heard the one about the Mormon and the Muslim?

Politics makes strange bedfellows, but there may no odder couple in recent American political history than Orrin Hatch — the white, rock-ribbed conservative Utah Republican and Mormon — and Muhammad Ali, the most famous boxer ever, African-American icon and Muslim convert.

Yet the two had a friendship that lasted decades, up until Ali's death last week at age 74. Ali's wife, Lonnie, asked Hatch to speak at her husband's funeral Friday in Louisville, Ky., Ali's hometown.

Hatch said he was honored to do it.

Video: Footage recorded as shown live on MSNBC

Among the dignitaries who will speak on Friday at Muhammad Ali’s memorial service in Louisville, Ky., such as former President Bill Clinton and the comedian Billy Crystal, is one Washington figure who might be something of a surprise: Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.

Mr. Ali, the former heavyweight champion, showed up in Mr. Hatch’s office in the Senate one day in 1988, apparently impressed by Mr. Hatch’s performance at some high-profile hearings. A deep friendship was born.

Muhammad Ali was beloved around the world, but perhaps one of his unlikeliest friends was Sen. Orrin Hatch, who remembered the three-time heavyweight champion at his funeral on Friday.