#CNN’s Van Jones reportedly helped craft Trump police reform order in secret

CNN political commentator Van Jones, who commended President Trump for his recent executive order on police reform, had actually attended secret White House meetings to craft the new measure, according to a report.

Jones, 51, who hosts “The Van Jones Show” on CNN, enthusiastically supported Trump on the network for his order to create a system for tracking police misconduct, ban most chokeholds and incentivize officer training in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis.

He lauded the president even as the executive order was slammed as cynical and unproductive by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and described as “delusional” by the Color of Change, a racial justice group that Jones himself co-founded 15 years ago, The Daily Beast reported.

Unbeknownst to the viewers, Jones had joined his new pal Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, in the White House to discuss ways to frame the order on police reform, according to the outlet.

Helping Jones, law enforcement officials and White House staffers fashion the measure was Jessica Jackson, a California human-rights attorney who runs #cut50, a prison-reform group that Jones also founded, according to the report.

“The executive order is a good thing, mainly because you saw the support of law enforcement there… There is movement in the direction of a database for bad cops,” Jones said on CNN’s “Inside Politics.”

“We have never had a federal database for bad cops, that’s why all these cops go all over the place doing bad stuff… The chokeholds, that’s common ground now between Nancy Pelosi and Trump. Good stuff there,” he added, according to the outlet.

He later told host Anderson Cooper that the executive order was “pushing in the right direction.”

“What you got today is, I think, a sign that we are winning,” he added again without disclosing his behind-the-scenes role. “Donald Trump has put himself on record saying we need to reform the police department… We are winning! Donald Trump had no plan a month ago to work on this issue at all. The fact that we are now in the direction of moving forward, I think, is good.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Rose Garden ceremony where Trump signed the measure “a photo op” and the executive order “seriously short of what is required.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime ally of Jones, assailed the order as “toothless and meaningless.”

“I did not think the executive order was worth the paper it was written on,” Sharpton told The Daily Beast.

“Van’s experiment with Trump is a case of him having more faith than I have, but I’m not going to attack him for doing it…I think he’s well-intentioned, but I think he totally underestimates the kind of guy he’s dealing with,” the activist told the outlet.

“I just disagree that the people he’s dealing with have a sincere bone in their body. But I can’t fault him for trying,” Sharpton added.

Actor Jeffrey Wright said in a tweet: “Smells like Van Jones helped Kushner craft this exec order, so he touts it. ‘You can’t polish this turd,’ he said of Trump’s delinquency, yet here he is with boot black & rag.”

Stephen A. Crockett Jr., a columnist for The Root and Jones detractor, wrote that “Jones’ job appears to be making Republican policy palatable to black people. So expect him to call this new proposal progress.”

In a note of sarcasm in quoting Malcom X, Crockett added: “‘Hey look, the knife went from being 9 inches in your back to being only 6 inches in your back,’ (Van Jones’ voice).”

Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, did not respond to requests for comment by The Daily Beast.

Jones declined to speak to the outlet, which was told by a member of his public relations staff that “due to his contractual obligations with CNN/Turner, he’s limited in what press he can do outside of their network.”

The network also wouldn’t comment on why it did not disclose that Jones worked behind the scenes to shape Trump’s executive order.