Yesterday it was reported that Kim Kardashian, yes that Kim Kardashian, would be meeting with President Donald Trump. The two reality stars met up to talk about prison reform. On top of discussing prison reform, they also talked about one prisoner, Alice Marie Johnson.
Johnson is a 63-year-old great-grandmother who is serving a life sentence for a first time nonviolent drug-related crime. She is not eligible for parole. Johnson was convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts from a cocaine trafficking operation in Memphis. She was sentenced in 1997 and has been in prison for more than two decades.
Yesterday Kardashian tweeted happy birthday to Johnson and said, “Today is for you.” Almost 12 hours later she explained what went down in the White House.
“It is our hope that the President will grant clemency to Ms. Alice Marie Johnson who is serving a life sentence for a first-time, non-violent drug offense,” Kardashian tweeted. “We are optimistic about Ms. Johnson’s future and hopeful that she —and so many like her—will get a second chance at life.”
She and her lawyer Shawn Holley rolled up to the White House to bring Johnson’s case to the President’s desk in hopes he will grant her clemency. One of Johnson’s lawyers Brittany Barnett told Daily Mail why Johnson’s sentencing and prison reform fall in line with one another.
“The message to the president is that Alice Johnson, the 21 years she has been in prison, represents a punishment that more than pays her debt to society and that to keep her prison the rest of her life is morally and economically unjustifiable,” Barnett said.
One of Kardashian’s representatives confirmed to BuzzFeed that Johnson’s legal team was assembled by Holley and is being funded by Kardashian.
Johnson who never had any run-ins with the law beforehand only became involved in drug trafficking when her life hit a rough patch. “She lost her job at FedEx, where she had worked for 10 years, due to a gambling addiction; she got divorced; and then her youngest son died in a motorcycle accident,” Mic reported.
Kardashian first became aware of Johnson in October 2017 when Mic posted a video explaining Johnson’s situation. Kardashian quote retweeted the video and wrote, “This is so unfair…” The video now has almost four million views.
Kardashian meeting with Trump wasn’t an out of the blue ordeal. She has been in contact with Trump’s son-in-law/senior advisor Jared Kushner. Kushner arranged the meeting between Kardashian and Trump. He and his wife Ivanka Trump also met Kardashian while she was at the White House.
In December 2016, former President Obama granted clemency to 231 people who has similar drug charges as Johnson. The possibility of Johnson getting pardoned isn’t that far-fetched.