From:
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Trump grants full pardon to Alice Marie Johnson
by Madison Dibble, Breaking News Reporter |
| August 28, 2020 02:30 PM
President Trump granted a full pardon to criminal justice reform advocate Alice
Marie Johnson more than two years after he commuted her life sentence for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense.
"We’re going to give a full pardon. We are going to do it right now," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. He signed the pardon at 2:12 p.m.,
which he said changed his action from a commutation to a full pardon.
Trump commended Johnson for the work she has done since leaving prison. He called her original sentence "horrible" and said he was proud of her for her continued efforts on criminal justice reform. He said the pardon would allow Johnson to do "whatever
you want in life and just keep doing the great job you are doing."
"Alice was given a life sentence, and you spent about 22 years and for something that today a lot of people would not even be going to jail for, and it was horrible," Trump said. "We found out about it, and we gave you a commutation. That means we were
able to get Alice out, and she’s been so outstanding. and I am so proud of you."
Johnson, a black 65-year-old grandmother whose case was championed by Kim Kardashian, began serving time in prison in 1996 for being involved in a nonviolent drug conspiracy. She was sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years despite it being her first
offense.
Johnson was in prison for 22 years until Trump commuted her sentence in 2018. She became an advocate of criminal justice reform and helped inspire the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill signed into law in 2018.
Johnson spoke on Trump's behalf at the Republican National Convention on Thursday. Earlier in the day on Friday, during a Fox & Friends interview, she responded to a tweet from Politico, saying she is not a "prop" for the GOP.
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