Kim Kardashian meets Alice Johnson for the first time, says she does not plan on entering politics
'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star Kim Kardashian has confirmed that she will not be getting into politics and, of course, her fans were disappointed. The reality TV star fuelled speculation that she may venture into politics after she advocated for the release of Alice Marie Johnson, a 62-year-old grandmother who spent the last twenty years in jail for a non-violent drug offense.
Kim had spoken about her desire to get Alice the justice she deserved and to be freed from jail. She even met with Donald Trump at the White House to talk about the situation that Alice was in.
POTUS and Kim posed for a picture together during her visit to the White House. Kim was also the person to break the news to Alice over the phone that she would be getting out of jail after Donald Trump granted her clemency.
However, Kim has now flatly denied that she will be entering the political world and admitted that she is 'fulfilled' by the outcome. Kim spoke on the 'Today' show and said, "I’m still doing me, but I enjoy this. This has fulfilled my heart, and since I feel so fulfilled why would I stop that? It became this mission that I just didn’t want to give up. I think to some people it might seem like, 'OK, Kim made a phone call to the President, showed up,' [but] we had been in talks and working on this for seven months. It wasn’t an instant thing."
Alice Marie Johnson was convicted in 1996 for her involvement in a Memphis cocaine trafficking organization and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Tennessee grandmother's life sentence was commuted last week thanks to Kim Kardashian's advocacy. Alice admitted on the 'Today' show had never even heard of Kim Kardashian before the reality TV star decided to take up her cause.
"I did not know her name, I didn’t know Kim," Alice shared just moments after meeting Kim on the show. "As soon as I found out who she was, I started getting every magazine I could find, I started reading everything I could about her. And everyone was amazed and I was amazed too." Kim Kardashian first heard about Alice's situation and plight via social media and started to confer with her lawyers about how she could help.
"It became this mission that I just didn’t want to give up," Kim said. After she was able to speak with Ivanka Trump, Kardashian was able to set up a meeting at the Oval Office with POTUS to ask for clemency. Kim revealed that she broke the ice with Trump by saying, "I’m here because I want to know why you kicked Khloe off 'The Apprentice'," referring to her sister, Khloe Kardashian, who was on the President's former reality TV show in 2009.
As the two began to discuss the case at hand, Kim revealed that the President "had compassion for her right away. To me, this has nothing to do with politics, this has to do with people," Kardashian said. She also went on to add that the President's views on punishment related to drug charges are beginning to change. Alice Marie Johnson was released a week after the meeting took place.
"Thank you is not big enough, I have to walk it out, I have to live my thank you out. Thank you, President Trump, for making that wonderful life possible," Johnson said. Kim and Johnson revealed that they are both planning to advocate for prison reform.
Johnson wrote in an op-ed at CNN, "Before my incarceration, I had a full life. I married my childhood sweetheart and became the mother to five beautiful children. As the years went on, I became a facilitator training people on how to be managers. I was a manager at FedEx for seven years. Life for a time was good."
A series of unfortunate and tragic events changed the course of Johnson's life. In the year 1989, she and her husband divorced. A year later, she says lost her job at FedEx, ultimately filing for bankruptcy and losing her house in the process. Then, in 1992, her youngest son was killed in a scooter accident. It was at this point that she says that, while she never brokered any drug deals, she was responsible for conveying coded messages over the phone.
"I acknowledge that I have done wrong. I made the biggest mistake of my life to make ends meet and got involved with people selling drugs. No matter what happens, I was not built to break. I will keep writing. I will continue to hold my head high and live a productive life either as a free woman or here behind bars. God has shown me my strength," Alice had written in the op-ed.