#Alice Johnson, freed by Trump on Kim Kardashian’s advice, will speak at RNC

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Alice Johnson with President Donald Trump in the White House.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Alice Johnson, the grandmother freed from prison by President Trump at Kim Kardashian’s urging, will speak next week at the Republican National Convention.

“I’ll be there talking about criminal justice reform, that is my main mission,” Johnson told the Daily Beast. “I’m there because I’ve been affected by our criminal justice system, and that’s my mission.”

Johnson, 65, was sentenced to life without parole in 1997 for her role in a drug-dealing ring. Trump commuted her sentence to time served in June 2018 following a visit from Kardashian.

Trump often reflects positively on his decision to free Johnson and sought Kardashian’s advice on other inmates to release.

Trump advisers, and even some opponents, say he could boost support among minorities by talking about criminal justice reform, including his role in passing the 2018 First Step Act, which implemented various prison reforms and sentencing reductions and expanded compassionate release.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, by contrast, authored a 1994 crime law credited with contributing to “mass incarceration.” His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), oversaw 1,900 convictions for marijuana alone as San Francisco district attorney.

Still, Trump faces a delicate balancing act pumping criminal justice reform while also pushing a “law and order” message, specifically in regard to recent violent protests following the Minnesota police killing of George Floyd in May.

Clemency advocates have cheered Trump’s sporadic prison commutations and pardons, but hope for even more aggressive uses of his presidential powers before he leaves office. Some want him to set up an in-house clemency commission that bypasses the slow-paced Justice Department Office of the Pardon Attorney.

After winning Johnson’s freedom, Kardashian made a second visit to the Oval Office in late 2018 to plead for Chris Young, then 30 years old, who was arrested at 22 for drug dealing and given a mandatory life sentence because of two prior convictions. Kardashian brought former US District Judge Kevin Sharp, who told Trump his hands were tied and the penalty was unjust. Two years later, Young remains in prison.

Kardashian’s husband, Kanye West, is running an unconventional independent presidential candidacy. He also visited Trump in the Oval Office in 2018 and said that wearing a MAGA hat “made me feel like Superman.”