Former prison inmate Alice Johnson said Wednesday she had a “feeling of betrayal” when former President Barack Obama left office with her still behind bars, urging other clemency aspirants to put aside their qualms and work with President Trump to win their release.
Johnson, who Trump freed last month from a drug-related life sentence, spoke at a gathering of clemency advocates at George Washington University, saying her case should give hope to others.
“From what everyone was saying, the Obama administration would be the one that would set you free, but I was still not set free. So to put your faith in a man was not a good thing to do,” Johnson said.
“And not only was I left behind, but many others were left behind also,” Johnson said. “There was a feeling of betrayal because I had so much hope that I was going to come out.”
Johnson, who addressed the gathering before a series of panels, and then again as a panelist, said she thinks there was a divine purpose in her wait.
“It didn’t happen for a reason. It happened for this time in history so that you will know that hearts can change, so that you will know that you should never stop fighting either, that you are not to look at what administration is in power, who is in office,” she said.
Johnson said that she was grateful that celebrity Kim Kardashian was willing to speak with Trump on her behalf, despite criticism of the visit.
“I’m so glad that Kim was willing to go to the table and sit down at the table and not wait for another administration,” she said. “I’m standing here as a living witness of people willing to go to the table and talk to whoever has the power of the pen.”
Panelists at the clemency-themed event at points debated the merits of former President Barack Obama’s late-second-term spree of prison commutations, which went overwhelmingly to drug convicts, a large share of whom were convicted for crack cocaine.
“The initiative missed a ton of people,” said Rachel Barkow, a law professor and member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Barkow argued that a major flaw was relying on the Justice Department, saying that prosecutors are disinclined to recognize mistakes. “The deputy attorney general was saying ‘no’ in a lot of these cases,” she said.
Roy Austin, a White House official in the Obama administration, defended Obama’s late-term commutation push, saying “I’m biased, [but] we got it pretty dang right.”
Austin said he “loves” Trump’s openness to recommendations from influential people, but that “the problem is that that’s helping too few,” and lacks a standardized process to ensure fairness.
Van Jones, an early-term Obama adviser who helps lead the clemency campaign #Cut50, offered positive views on the Trump administration, saying that at first “I was hopeless on election night” about clemency.
[Opinion: Does Trump even know a formal pardon process exists?]
“He took one step and got positive feedback,” Jones said about Johnson’s release, Trump’s second prison commutation and his first for a drug convict.
Trump’s subsequent invitation for professional athletes to submit the names of people worthy of clemency — an offer with few respondents — was “a remarkable development,” Jones said. “He literally ran out of the White House saying, ‘I want to do more.'”
Jones said that Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner “hates prisons and he’s trying to do something about it,” motivated by his father’s time behind bars.
Several panelists discussed ideas for moving the vetting work of the Office of the Pardon Attorney out of the Justice Department, to streamline clemency applications and remove a possible conflict of interest.
Amy Povah, a Clinton clemency recipient who leads the CAN-DO Foundation, said that she’s optimist about the Trump administration.
“I think we have a huge opportunity because of [Johnson’s] case, and I hope the Trump administration does something historic,” Povah said.
Mark Holden, general counsel of Koch Industries, said clemency transcends the typical conservative-liberal divide in politics.
“These are fundamental liberty issues,” he said, arguing that Johnson’s case “shocks the conscience” regardless of political affiliation.
Holden predicted that Trump will continue to use his constitutional clemency power. “I think there’s more to come,” he said.
