Yesterday, Trump commuted the sentence of 63 year old Alice Marie Johnson, who was serving a life sentence for drug offences. The appeal for Johnson’s release was led by Kim Kardashian West who met with the President and his senior adviser Jared Kushner recently to personally lobby the case. Within days, the President had willingly obliged.
Yesterday upon learning the news, Kardashian West tweeted it was the “BEST NEWS EVER!”
BEST NEWS EVER!!!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 https://t.co/JUbpbE1Bk0
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 6, 2018
So grateful to @realDonaldTrump, Jared Kushner & to everyone who has showed compassion & contributed countless hours to this important moment for Ms. Alice Marie Johnson. Her commutation is inspirational & gives hope to so many others who are also deserving of a second chance.
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 6, 2018
Irrespective of the result however, Trump’s overriding rationale was not to seek justice for a woman wronged.
“It’s all part of the show,” said long-term Republican consultant Ed Rollins. “It’s not a rational or traditional process but about celebrity or who they know, or who he sees on Fox & Friends. He’s sending the message: ‘I can do whatever I want, and I could certainly pardon someone down the line on the Russia probe’.”
Certainly, this decision appears at odds with Trump’s call for tough penalties for drug dealers, including his repeated suggestion that some should receive the death penalty.
Rumblings suggest Trump has grown bored with the monotony of presidential life. He had expected to lead without checks or protocol and has since grown tired of the red tape which thwarts his every move.
But with pardons he is able to act on his own free accord, allegedly even querying whether he’d have necessary authority to pardon himself.
It’s expected that over the coming months Trump will make a number of similar pardons with an unnamed White House official telling Fairfax the President has grown “obsessed” with this new control, describing it was his new “favourite thing”.
No doubt Kardashian West’s wealth, fame and appearance also played a significant role in the President’s most recent decision. while the reality star has long been a vocal Democrat, her husband Kanye West recently vouched for Trump, who he described as his “brother” embodying “dragon energy” via Twitter.
You don’t have to agree with trump but the mob can’t make me not love him. We are both dragon energy. He is my brother. I love everyone. I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 25, 2018
Trump’s pardons so far have been erratic– granted only after appeals from friends, high-profile conservatives and celebrities. Examples so far have included former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, commentator Dinesh D’Souza and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
He even took measures to posthumously pardon heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson in May, following personal lobbying from actor Sylvester Stallone.