The story of Alice Marie Johnson made it to the West Wing, thanks to the queen of reality television.
During an unprecedented White House visit to see President Trump, Kim Kardashian West advocated on behalf of the 63-year-old woman who has spent more than two decades locked away for a first-time nonviolent drug offense.
Johnson was handed a life sentence without parole.
Kardashian, along with Johnson’s legal team, celebrated the prisoner’s birthday by asking Trump to give her clemency.
She was 42 when she was first imprisoned in the 1990s after being caught in a cocaine trafficking plot from her Memphis apartment, court papers show. There, she stashed cash and relayed messages for conspirators, many of whom federal investigators believed earned millions for the drug hauls.
A grand jury indicted in the Western District of Tennessee in 1994 on eight counts of selling a controlled substance, according to records.
Because of the conviction, Johnson is imprisoned at the minimum-security Aliceville Federal Correctional Institution in Alabama — presumably for life.
She sought clemency once before, in 2014, when President Barack Obama held the White House. She was denied.
Johnson’s legal team is hopeful that Kardashian’s White House visit will make a difference under the Trump administration.
“It is now in President Trump’s hands to decide whether to save Alice Johnson’s life,” said Brittany Barnett, one of Johnson’s lawyers.
Trump offered no hint of what he may do with Johnson’s future when he tweeted about the visit later on Wednesday.
“Great meeting with @Kim Kardashian today, talks about prison reform and sentencing, he wrote.
Kardashian championed the great-grandmother after learning of her plight when Mic profiled her in October 2017. Since then, Kardashian has been working toward Johnson’s release and has even enlisted the help of her personal attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley.
“I’ve been in communication with the White House and trying to bring her case to the President’s desk and figure out how we can get her out,” Kardashian told Mic earlier this month.
“That’s such a huge step from where we started with that not even being on their radar.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Kardashian’s visit during her daily briefing, promising to provide additional details on “any meetings that take place and what those look like.”
In a personal essay published on CNN, Johnson opened up about what Kardashian West’s help has done for her case.
“Some refer to prison as a place where hope dies. Some days I’ve found that to be almost right. Each time that I’ve come close, God has restored my faith,” she wrote.
“So when the unlikely voices of Kim Kardashian West and Jared Kushner come together to shine a spotlight on my case, I could only thank God, for he works in mysterious ways.”
Kardashian, a 37-year-old mother of three, openly supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, while her husband, Kanye West, rallied behind Donald Trump.
Her husband met with the President-elect at Trump Tower after his November win and last month released a song defending his praise for the President.
