Kanye may have a hotline to President Trump, but his wife, Kim Kardashian, has the ear of Javanka, it seems.
Mic is reporting that Kardashian’s campaign to secure clemency for imprisoned grandmother Alice Marie Johnson—jailed for life for her involvement in a 1997 drug deal—has now reached President Trump’s desk thanks to Kardashian getting Jared Kushner—and Ivanka Trump, says TMZ—involved in the case, and Kardashian is hopeful a pardon will happen soon.
Johnson was denied clemency in a previous appeal to President Obama.
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TMZ reports that “Johnson’s file is now on President Trump’s desk for review.”
Kardashian has been lobbying for Johnson for more than a year now. Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1997 on money-laundering and drug-conspiracy charges.
At trial, prosecutors called 10 of her co-conspirators to testify against her in exchange for reduced or, in some cases, dropped charges. The co-defendants who testified against her were given sentences ranging from probation without jail time to 10 years, while Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 25 years.
Johnson admits she acted as a go-between, relaying coded messages by telephone, but says that she never personally made drug deals or sold drugs.
Johnson’s fate was included in “A Living Death,” a report of more than 110 case studies of prisoners serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The punishments these people received are grotesquely out of proportion to the crimes they committed,” said author Jennifer Turner, ACLU human-rights researcher, in the report. Possession of a crack pipe, acting as a middleman in the sale of $10 of marijuana, possession of a bottle cap containing a trace amount of heroin too small to weigh, selling of a single crack rock, and shoplifting a $159 jacket were among the crimes featured in the report that resulted in sentences of life without parole.
Johnson has previously written a thank-you note to Kardashian expressing her “deep and heartfelt gratitude” for shining a light on her situation, saying, “Ms. Kardashian you are literally helping to save my life and restore me to my family. I was drowning and you have thrown me a life jacket and given me hope.”
Kardashian is also involved in the effort to free Cyntoia Brown, a Tennessee woman who killed a man who she claims was using her as a sex slave when she was 16.
