Trump grants clemency after Kardashian plea

Tenn. woman got life in first-offense drug case

WASHINGTON – President Trump granted clemency Wednesday to a Tennessee woman serving a life sentence for cocaine trafficking — after hearing a plea from reality television star Kim Kardashian West in an Oval Office meeting.

Alice Marie Johnson, who turned 63 last week, had her life sentence commuted to time served after 22 years. Trump’s clemency warrant ordered her to be released immediately from Aliceville Federal Correctional Institution in Alabama.

It was Kardashian West who informed Johnson of the president’s decision, said Shawn Holley, a Kardashian lawyer who helped advocate for clemency.

“I just got off the most wonderful, emotional and amazing phone call with Alice, Kim and Alice’s lawyers,” Holley said. “It was a moment I will never forget. Once Alice’s family joined the call, the tears never stopped flowing.”

Johnson was convicted in 1996 of five counts of drug trafficking and one count of money laundering and sentenced to life in prison — despite it being her first offense.

“Ms. Johnson has accepted responsibility for her past behavior and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “While this administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance.”

Johnson’s plea for clemency was denied by President Obama weeks before he left office in 2017, despite an initiative aimed at freeing drug offenders serving long mandatory minimum sentences. Case files are not public, so it’s unclear why Obama found her petition undeserving.

A long list of officials — Congress members, the U.S. attorney and even the warden at her prison — asked the pardon attorney to reconsider.

“At 63 years old, I am closer to heaven than to earth,” Johnson wrote the judge in her case last year. “I’m a broken woman. More time in prison cannot accomplish more justice.”

Trump has taken a different approach to presidential pardon power than his predecessor. Obama took recommendations from the Justice Department’s Office of Pardon Attorney. Trump has bypassed that process to grant pardons in high-profile cases such as those involving former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, George W. Bush White House aide Scooter Libby and former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson.

Johnson received a rare posthumous pardon last month after Sylvester Stallone of Rocky fame championed his case.

Trump’s use of his clemency power in a drug trafficking case suggests he might be open to the kind of commutations for non-violent drug offenders that Obama championed though his clemency initiative. Obama commuted more sentences than the previous 10 presidents combined.

Last week, the Trump White House asked clemency advocates to send lists of people who may deserve commutations for Trump’s consideration.

Commutations shorten a prison sentence while leaving the other consequences of a conviction intact. Johnson must meet the conditions of court-supervised release for five years.