Trump sets drug offender free
Flexing his clemency powers once again, US President Donald Trump yesterday commuted the life sentence of a woman whose cause was championed by reality TV star Kim Kardashian West.
‘‘BEST NEWS EVER !!!! ’’ was the exuberant Twitter response from Kardashian West, who visited the White House last week to press the case of Alice Marie Johnson, 63, who had spent more than two decades behind bars, serving life without parole for drug offences. Johnson was released from federal prison in Aliceville, Alabama hours later, and ran into her waiting family members’ arms.
Unlike a pardon, the commutation does not erase Johnson’s conviction, but only ends her sentence.
Johnson was convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts related to a Memphis-based cocaine trafficking operation. Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, rejected her appeals. Clemency was rejected by President Barack Obama, who commuted the sentences of hundreds of federal inmates convicted of drug crimes. Trump’s decision, his latest inspired by a celebrity champion, comes amid a flurry of recent pardons issued by the president. He has been working outside the traditional pardon process usually overseen by the US Justice Department, and has appeared to favour cases that catch his attention – because they have been championed by either friends and celebrities or conservative media.
He has also been drawn to cases in which he believes prosecutors may have been motivated by politics – situations that may remind him of his own predicament at the centre of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling.
Trump recently pardoned conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who was convicted of a campaign finance violation, and granted a posthumous pardon to boxing’s first black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, which had been championed by actor Sylvester Stallone.
Some have seen the pardons as sending a message to former campaign aides ensnared in the Mueller probe or other legal inquiries, including Trump’s longtime lawyer and legal ‘‘fixer’’ Michael Cohen, whose finances are under federal investigation. –AP