Trump grants clemency after Kardashian plea
Drug conviction sent woman to prison for life
WASHINGTON – President Trump granted clemency Wednesday to a Tennessee woman serving a life sentence for cocaine trafficking — after hearing a plea from reality TV star Kim Kardashian West in an Oval Office meeting.
Alice Marie Johnson, who celebrat- ed her 63rd birthday last week, had her life sentence commuted to time served after 22 years.
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 the fact that it was 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’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.
The Can-Do Foundation, which advocates shorter sentences for non-violent drug offenders, put Johnson at the top of its list.
Commutations shorten a prison sentence while leaving other consequences of a conviction intact. Johnson will be required to meet the conditions of court-supervised release for five years, said Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas.