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"It's been the honor of my life to serve you. You made me a better leader and a better man," he said.

His post-White House website, Obama.org, features a request form for scheduling events and a page for fundraising.

"As we look forward, I want our first steps to reflect what matters most to you. Share your thoughts with me at Obama.org," he tweeted.

"I won't stop; I'll be right there with you as a citizen, inspired by your voices of truth and justice, good humor, and love," Obama also tweeted.

The final tweet from the Obama administration's control of the account @WhiteHouse came shortly thereafter, and featured a photo of Obama hand-in-hand with Rep. John Lewis as well as other civil rights activists in Selma, Alabama, in 2015.

"Yes we can. Yes we did. Thank you for being a part of the past eight years," the account tweeted.

The tweets come as more than 50 Democratic lawmakers -- including Lewis -- are planning to boycott Donald Trump's inauguration out of concern for how he came to power following US intelligence pointing to Russia's involvement in meddling with the 2016 election. Trump tweeted after Lewis' announcement to boycott that the civil rights icon was "all talk."

And other lawmakers expressed concern about Trump's rhetoric and proposed policies towards women, immigrants, Latinos and other groups that overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton in the campaign.

"I'm still asking you to believe - not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours. I believe in change because I believe in you," Obama tweeted.

Obama wrote an emotional public letter, published Thursday, thanking Americans and encouraging them to participate into "daily acts of citizenship."

"Before I leave my note for our 45th president, I wanted to say one final thank you for the honor of serving as your 44th," he wrote. "Because all that I've learned in my time in office, I've learned from you. You made me a better president, and you made me a better man."

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Obama tweets final message from White House, announces new website - CNN International

Walking out to chants of "yes, we can!" and leaving to chants of "yes, we did!" President Barack Obama gave final remarks at a farewell gathering of staff at Joint Base Andrews before boarding his last flight on the military aircraft that ferries presidents on their travels.

"This has never been about us. It has always been about you. And all the amazing things that happened over these last ten years are really just a testament to you," Obama told the gathered staffers and military. "Our democracy is not the buildings, it's not the monuments, it's you being willing to work and make things better."

Related: #ThanksObama: America Shows Love for Former President Online, on Street

The Obama family, who will ultimately remain in Washington D.C. while daughter Malia is still in school there, are traveling for a vacation in Palm Springs, California immediately following President Donald Trump's Inauguration as president.

"This is just a little pit stop," Obama told the crowd to big cheers, in comments seen as a nod to the inauguration of a historically unpopular candidate Obama once described as "unfit to serve."

He added, "This is not a period, this is a comma in the continuing story of building America."

Finishing the brief remarks, Obama thanked the gathered staffers with a similar sentiment to a farewell letter he penned to the American people.

"This has been privilege of my life, I speak for Michelle as well," he said. "And we look forward to continuing journey with all of you, can't wait to see what you do next. I promise you I'll be right there with you, alright?

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Obama Addresses Farewell Gathering Before Last Flight From Joint Base Andrews - NBCNews.com

As they rode in the presidential limousine to the U.S. Capitol on Inauguration Day in 2009, President George W. Bush offered some last-minute advice to President-elect Barack Obama: Announce a pardon policy early and stick to it.

On the ride up Pennsylvania Avenue ... I told Barack Obama about my frustrations with the pardon system, Bush wrote in his memoir.

Obama did not seriously focus on pardons and commutations until 2014, two years into his second term. But on Thursday, his last full day in office, Obama announced 330 more commutations, for nonviolent drug offenders, bringing his total number of clemencies to 1,715. He has granted commutations to more people than the past 12 presidents combined, including 568 inmates with life sentences. He has granted 212pardons. His final group of clemencies was the most Obama granted in a day and the most granted on one day in U.S. history.

[These are the names of the final 330 people who received commutations by Obama]

By restoring proportionality to unnecessarily long drug sentences, this administration has made a lasting impact on our criminal justice system, said Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates. With 1,715 commutations in total, this undertaking was as enormous as it was unprecedented.

(Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

In his clemencies this week, Obama commuted the 35-year prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army private convicted of stealing secret diplomatic and military documents and giving them to WikiLeaks, after deciding that Manning had served enough time. The president also granted a commutation to Oscar Lpez Rivera, a Puerto Rican independence activist who was a member of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, a terrorist organization that killed and wounded people in the 1970s and 1980s with bomb attacks.

The commutation for Lpez Rivera, 74, who served 35 years in prison for a conspiracy against the U.S. government, had been championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

A Texas lawyer, who represented seven inmates who have received clemency from Obama over the past two years, praised the president Thursday for recognizing that the criminal justice system is broken and restoring a sense of fairness.

His gracious act of mercy today sealed his clemency legacy and allowed many truly deserving men and women to be reunited with their families, Brittany Byrd said. I was overjoyed when I received the call from Pardon Attorney Robert Zauzmer telling me the president had granted clemency to my client, Trenton Copeland, who was being buried alive under an unduly harsh sentence of life without parole for a nonviolent drug offense. The president saved Trentons life today.

[ 'I have been fundamentally condemned to die in prison,' a drug dealer wrote. Obama listened.]

But other activists expressed disappointment that Obama had not granted an early release to more inmates.

Its fantastic that the president is using his last days in office to continue to grant clemency to deserving prisoners, said Julie Stewart, founder and chairman of the board of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, which has been fighting for 18years for clemency for drug offenders sentenced under the tough drug laws of the 1980s and 1990s.

But my heart aches for those who will not make the cut, Stewart said. After over two years of believing they may have a chance for freedom, they now see that door of hope closing. I cant imagine what the pall in the prisons will feel like on January 20 when President Obama leaves office.

The Obama administration had denied 14,485 clemency petitions and 1,629 pardons, as of Jan. 3.

Among those denied clemency was Native American activist Leonard Peltier, 72, who was convicted of the fatal shooting of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. His supporters, including Pope Francis, pressed Obama to grant him a commutation, but their appeal was opposed by many in law enforcement, including FBI agents.

[Along with Chelsea Manning, here are the other people who received pardons and commutations from Obama]

Another inmate who was denied clemency is 64-year-old Bruce Harrison, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who was awarded two Purple Hearts. Harrison, who is in Coleman prison in Florida, has health problems and has served 23years of a 50-year sentence for his role in transporting drugs in a government sting operation.

After Harrison and other members of his motorcycle group were sentenced, several jurors said they were dismayed to learn of the long sentence that was imposed.

If I would have been given the right to not only judge the facts in this case, but also the law and the actions taken by the government, the prosecutor, local and federal law enforcement officers connected in this case would be in jail and not the defendants, juror Patrick L. McNeil wrote afterward.

Those who championed Harrisons case contrasted it with Obamas grant of clemency to Manning, who the president said had served a tough sentence after seven years in prison.

Bruce has served 23 years, and the government set up the entire criminal activity, said Andrea Strong, also of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. This is beyond disappointing. I am just heartbroken. What does he have to look forward to now?

He is 64years old. All he wanted was to come home and help raise his grandchildren. Now that dream had ended.

Former White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler said that clemency has long been a top priority for Obama. The president frequently complained to her during his first term that he was not receiving enough recommendations from the Justice Department to grant clemency. Shortly after the 2012 election, she said, he directed her to work with the Justice Department to increase the number of clemency applications for him to consider.

He told me to be creative and aggressive, Ruemmler said. She then worked with then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole to set up a process to increase the number of clemency petitions coming from the U.S. pardon attorney.

This would not have happened organically, Ruemmler said. This effort came directly from President Obama and is an important part of his legacy.

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Obama sent these people home from prison early. Now what?

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Obama grants final 330 commutations to nonviolent drug offenders - Washington Post

New York Times

Trump Nominees Make Clear Plans to Sweep Away Obama Policies ... New York Times Over two weeks of hearings, Donald J. Trump's cabinet picks have strongly embraced a deeply conservative approach to governing. and more »

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Trump Nominees Make Clear Plans to Sweep Away Obama Policies ... - New York Times

Donald Trump, our new president, has vowed to dismantle many of the environmental policies passed under President Barack Obama. But for the next four years, when it comes to climate policy, the place to watch isnt the White House its the courtroom.

For the past eight years, Obama has positioned himself as a global leader in the fight against climate change. At home, hes passed regulations to lower emissions of greenhouse gases from cars and plants, hes boosted renewable energy, and set new records for protecting public land. On the international level, Obama has spearheaded global climate deals like the Paris accord, signing bilateral agreements with top polluters like China to reduce CO2 emissions.

The place to watch isnt the White House, its the courtroom

But all that is now in peril. Trumps pick for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency is Scott Pruitt, a man whos questioned the scientific evidence of human-made climate change. His transition team has sent an intimidating questionnaire to the Department of Energy asking for the names of employees who worked on climate policy (the Energy Department refused and Trumps later disavowed the questionnaire). He has picked Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. And he has vowed to dismantle one of Obamas signature environmental policies in his first 100 days in office.

Environmental groups are already gearing up to fight any anti-climate action, and attorneys general from several states have vowed to bring the Trump administration to court. Thats where much of the fight over climate change and the environment is going to happen, likely for years to come. Its hard to predict what the outcomes will be. Trump is set to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, as well as fill in more than 100 judicial vacancies all over the US.

The courts will really decide the extent to which the Obama legacy is maintained or rolled back, says Maria Belenky, director of policy and research at Climate Advisers. The courts are the area of last resorts for a lot of environmental groups and a lot of states that have supported the Obama administrations agenda.

The Clean Power Plan, or CPP, is the core of Obamas plan to reduce CO2 emissions to curb climate change. But dismantling it wont be as easy, legal experts say; in fact, the CPP is already the subject of a heated legal battle at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and litigation is only likely to continue. Two dozen states and industry groups have sued the EPA, arguing that the agency overstepped its authority under the Clean Air Act. The DC Circuit court heard arguments in September but hasnt made a decision yet. And whatever the Trumps administration is going to do, more legal battles are likely to follow.

Dismantling the CPP wont be easy

Trumps EPA could ask the DC Circuit for a so-called voluntary remand, a motion that would essentially halt the case while the EPA reviews the complaints, according to Michael Gerrard, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. The EPA could then take its time to review the case, basically stalling the enforcement of the CPPs carbon-cutting requirements. But a group of attorneys general from several states liberal and conservative ones wrote a letter to Trump in December vowing to bring the administration to court if that were to happen.

Be assured that we would vigorously oppose in court any attempt to remand the Clean Power Plan back to EPA so late in the litigation, and prior to a decision from the Court on the merits of the claims, the letter read.

If the EPA waited for the DC Circuit to rule, and then decided to scrap the CPP altogether, lawsuits would still abound. Thats because the EPA has a legal obligation to curb greenhouse gas emissions based on a 2007 Supreme Court decision that defined those emissions are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. In that ruling, the Supreme Court also asked the EPA to determine whether these pollutants can endanger public health and welfare. In 2009, the EPA issued the so-called endangerment finding the finding, based on scientific evidence, that CO2 and five other global warming pollutants are dangerous for the public. That finding was at the base of Obamas entire environmental policy.

If Scott Pruitts EPA tried to roll back the endangerment finding, the Natural Resources Defense Council would sue them, says David Doniger, the director of NRDCs Climate & Clean Air Program. And the NRDC would probably win, according to legal experts. I think it would be really difficult to roll back the endangerment finding, says Vicki Arroyo, the executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center at Georgetown Law. It would be really difficult at this stage to argue in a legally defensible manner that there is not endangerment given what were seeing with the Greenland ice melt, Antarctica, the more frequent severe storms, long droughts many of which have been connected to human responsibility for CO2 and other climate-related emissions.

The courts are going to be very, very busy.

The courts are likely to hear cases on a hosts of other environmental issues as well. If the federal government fails to protect species under the Endangered Species Act, for example, environmental groups could sue federal agencies for inaction. If Trump decides to undo some of the controversial national monuments designated by Obama under the Antiquities Act, like the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, that could also wind up in the courts. The courts are going to be very, very busy evaluating the limits of American administrative laws, says David Victor, an expert on international climate policy at the University of California, San Diego.

How the courts will rule is difficult to predict. Trump will be able to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, skewing that courts balance to the conservative side. If environmental cases are picked up by the Supreme Court, a new composition will matter for the decision. The vacant Supreme Court seat is going to be huge right now, says Belenky at Climate Advisers. Not as important, but equally worrisome for environmentalists, are the more than 100 judicial vacancies across the US that Trump will be able to fill with his appointees.

A couple of the openings are at the Second Circuit, which has emerged as an important circuit for cases about how water is regulated under the Clean Water Act, according to Robin Craig, an environmental law professor at the University of Utah. Other openings are at the Ninth Circuit, which is important for endangered species cases, according to Gerrard. The Supreme Court will get much of the attention but the federal courts pose a much more immediate opportunity, says Victor at the University of California, San Diego.

As Trump steps into office, environmental groups are watching out for rollbacks to climate policy, fully ready to hit the green button on litigation, Belenky says. Some are confident that the courts will eventually sway on their side, if only because the American public including Trump voters overwhelmingly want a clean environment to lead healthy lives.

I think the Trump administration can do many damaging things but ultimately the law is on our side, so well win cases if we have to bring them against these rollbacks, and well also find that theyll lose in the court of public opinion, says Doniger at the NRDC. The public supports these safeguards, the public wants clear air and water, the public wants a safe climate.

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It's judges, not Trump, who will decide Obama's environmental legacy - The Verge