Washington • Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West is heading to the White House Wednesday to make a star-powered case for prison reform and advocate on behalf of a great-grandmother serving a life sentence.
Kardashian West has urged the president to pardon Alice Marie Johnson, 63, who is serving a life sentence without parole for a non-violent drug offense.
In an interview with Mic, Kardashian West said she’d been moved by Johnson’s story after seeing a video by the news outlet.
“I think that she really deserves a second chance at life,” Kardashian told Mic. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get her out.”
She said in the interview she’d been in touch with Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, over the case.
“I’ve been in communication with the White House and trying to bring her case to the president’s desk and figure out how we can get her out,” she said of Johnson, who has spent over two decades behind bars.
Kushner oversees the administration’s push to overhaul the nation’s prison system and help former inmates gain skills and more effectively make the transition back into society.
It’s unclear whether Kardashian West will meet with Trump during the visit, though the president often invites visitors to the White House complex into the Oval Office for informal meetings and photo-ops.
She told Mic that if she had the chance to meet the president, she’d tell him: “I really do believe that she’s going to really thrive outside of prison, and I would just urge him to please pardon her.”
Trump last week granted a rare posthumous pardon to boxing’s first black heavyweight champion, clearing Jack Johnson’s name more than 100 years after what many saw as his racially-charged conviction.
The boxer’s pardon had been championed by actor Sylvester Stallone, who brought the story to Trump’s attention in a spring phone call.
Trump has issued just a handful of other pardons, including one for former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a staunch campaign supporter, one for Scooter Libby, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney, and one for a U.S. Navy sailor convicted for taking photos of classified portions of a submarine.
Kardashian West supported Trump’s rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, during the 2016 election. But her husband, rapper Kanye West, recently offered his support for Trump in a series of tweets, saying they both share “dragon energy.”
West also paid a visit to the then-president elect in New York before his inauguration. Trump said they’d talked about “life” as they posed for photos in the lobby of Trump Tower. West has said he didn’t vote for president, but if he had, he would have cast a ballot for Trump.
The White House declined to comment on the visit. Trump has talked about the need to get tougher on drug dealers, including suggesting that some should receive the death penalty. Kardashian West appeared to preview the visit on her Twitter feed, writing: “Happy Birthday Alice Marie Johnson. Today is for you.”
Johnson was convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts related to a multi-year Memphis-based cocaine trafficking operation involving more than a dozen people. The 1994 indictment describes dozens of deliveries and drug transactions, many involving Johnson.
She was sentenced to life in prison in 1997, and appellate judges and the U.S. Supreme Court have rejected her appeals. Court records show she has a motion pending for a reduction in sentence, but federal prosecutors are opposed to a sentence reduction, saying in a court filing that the sentence is in accord with federal guidelines, based on the large quantity of drugs involved. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Memphis did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
A criminal justice advocacy site, CAN-DO, and one of Johnson’s attorneys say a request for clemency was rejected by former President Barack Obama. The reasons are unclear.
Memphis attorney Michael Scholl, who filed the latest court documents in her request for a sentence reduction, said she was not a leader in the cocaine operation.
“What is the purpose of putting a lady with no prior criminal record, on a non-violent drug offense, in jail for her entire life?” he said in a telephone interview. “She’s a model inmate.”
Scholl added that Johnson has admitted her wrongdoing, which is borne out in letters she has written to U.S. District Judge Samuel H. Mays, who now oversees her case.
“Judge Mays I’m writing to you to express my deep remorse for the crime that I committed over 20 years ago. I made some bad choices which have not only affected my life, but have impacted my entire family,” she said in a February 2017 letter in the court record.
In a hand-scrawled letter last June she wrote: “I’m a broken woman. More time in prison cannot accomplish more justice.”
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Associated Press writer Kevin McGill contributed from this report from New Orleans. McCartney reported from Los Angeles.
