Vanity Fair reports that the reality star is meeting this afternoon with White House adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, to discuss prison reform in general and one prisoner in particular: Alice Marie Johnson, a 62-year-old great-grandmother who has been behind bars for 21 years.
After being convicted for her role in a multimillion-dollar cocaine ring in Memphis, Tennessee, in the early 1990s, Johnson was given a mandatory life sentence without parole in 1996. Her case was picked up by the nonprofit Clemency for All Non-violent Drug Offenders (CAN-DO) and has circulated throughout social media, where Kardashian caught wind of it in 2017:
This is so unfair... https://t.co/W3lPINbQuy
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) October 26, 2017
Kushner has been an advocate for prison reform since his father’s 2005 arrest for tax evasion, and since joining he White House he has largely focused on prisoner reentry programs like bipartisan First Step Act. He and Kardashian reportedly have been in talks for months about Johnson’s case.
While Trump set a precedent last year for granting clemency in cases of egregious sentencing, this particular case may be at odds with the aims of his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who last year reversed an Obama administration position by calling for prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” against low-level offenders—including those who face severe mandatory sentences.