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2:24Now PlayingTrump frees Alice Johnson after Kim Kardashian West plea
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2:24Now PlayingPresident Trump granted clemency to Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old woman sentenced to life in prison. The move comes a week after Trump met with Kim Kardashian West, who became involved in Johnson’s case after viewing a viral video last year.
President Trump granted clemency Wednesday to a Tennessee woman serving a life sentence for cocaine trafficking — after hearing a plea from reality television star Kim Kardashian West in an Oval Office meeting.
Alice Marie Johnson, who celebrated her 63rd birthday last week, had her life sentence commuted to time served after 22 years. Trump's clemency warrant ordered her to be released immediately from Aliceville Federal Correctional Institution in Alabama.
It was Kardashian West who informed Johnson of the president's decision, said Shawn Holley, a Kardashian lawyer who helped advocate for clemency.
“I just got off the most wonderful, emotional and amazing phone call with Alice, Kim and Alice’s lawyers," Holley said. "It was a moment I will never forget. Once Alice’s family joined the call, the tears never stopped flowing.”
Johnson was convicted in 1996 of five counts of drug trafficking and one count of money laundering and sentenced to life in prison — despite the fact that it was her first offense.
"Ms. Johnson has accepted responsibility for her past behavior and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "While this administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance."
Johnson's plea for clemency was denied by President Obama weeks before he left office in 2017, despite an initiative aimed at freeing drug offenders serving long mandatory minimum sentences. Case files are not public, so it's unclear why Obama found her petition undeserving.
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