A6 eZ sU the washington post.thursday, february 20 , 2020
sides recognize that the tradition-
al process needs to be reformed.”
The foundation’s executive,
Kevin roberts, was listed by the
White House as someone who
advocated for the release of Hall,
munoz and Negron.
It’s not clear how the people in
Trump’s informal network will
select people to recommend for
clemency, or whether any of the
thousands of inmates with pend-
ing applications will be able to
get the attention of Trump’s al-
lies.
Larry Kupers, who led the
pardon office during the first two
years of the Trump administra-
tion, noted that a record-setting
number of nearly 13,000 people
are waiting for responses to their
clemency requests. many of them
have no access to the president,
and it’s not clear how they would
fare under a new clemency pro-
cess that cuts out the career
officials at the Justice Depart-
ment.
“I would urge President Trump
to look closely at thousands of
federal inmates who really de-
serve clemency,” Kupers said,
“rather than focusing on his cro-
nies.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]beth reinhard, anne gearan and
Matt Zapotosky contributed to this
report.involves direct submission of ap-
plicants to the White House of-
fice of American Innovation,
which is led by Kushner, accord-
ing to people familiar with the
matter.
Ja’ron Smith, the deputy di-
rector of the office of American
Innovation, has also been in-
volved in the pardon process,
officials said.
Paul Larkin, a research fellow
at the Heritage foundation who
has worked with the White House
on criminal-justice issues, said
Kushner and others in the admin-
istration have held discussions
about changing the clemency
process since 2018.
Larkin said the discussions he
participated in, including one led
by Kushner in 2018, included
proposals for reducing or elimi-
nating the role of the Justice
Department’s office of the Par-
don Attorney in the clemency
process.
marc Levin, who leads the
Te xas Public Policy foundation’s
right on Crime initiative, said
changing the presidential pardon
process has long been on the
agenda of advocates on both sides
of the aisle.
“In most states, as you know,
the parole and clemency process
is not vested with prosecutors,”
he said, noting that obama also
tried to make changes, though
those efforts still took place with-
in the Justice Department. “BothKushner was supportive of the
Blagojevich commutation, while
other White House and campaign
aides argued heavily against it,
according to three administra-
tion officials.
Trump added to the sense of
confusion Tuesday by indicating
he decided to commute
Blagojevich’s sentence after see-
ing his wife advocate for his
release on television.
A set of White House talking
points released to supporters
Wednesday defended Trump’s d e-
cision to grant clemency to
Blagojevich, who had served
eight years of a 14-year sentence,
and others.
“The Americans granted par-
dons and commutations by Presi-
dent Trump were recommended
and selected based on factors
such as excessive sentencing,
their rehabilitation, and more,”
the talking points said, without
describing how the recommenda-
tions were made.
Several officials familiar with
the matter said the White House
has been discussing ways to re-
vamp the clemency process for
months, amid growing consensus
that the role of the Justice De-
partment should be minimized.
The White House has been disap-
pointed with the Justice Depart-
ment’s process, officials said.
While the Justice Department
has traditionally received clem-
ency petitions, the new processA move by Trump to ramp up
the clemency process and seize
control from the Justice Depart-
ment’s office of the Pardon Attor-
ney would be welcome by crimi-
nal-justice advocates, said mark
Holden, general counsel of Koch
Industries, the private company
controlled by billionaire industri-
alist Charles Koch, whose politi-
cal network worked closely with
the White House on legislation to
reduce sentences for nonviolent
offenders.
“I think the shift would be
great,” said Holden, who worked
with Johnson and the White
House to help secure commuta-
tions for munoz, Hall and Ne-
gron. “No disrespect intended to
the Department of Justice, but
having them decide who gets
freed after they’re the ones who
locked people up with these ridic-
ulous sentences? There seems to
be some bias there.”
Democrats have criticized
Trump’s willingness to use the
presidency’s almost unlimited
pardon authority to bestow clem-
ency to high-profile allies con-
victed of fraud, lying and corrup-
tion.
Trump’s commutation of
Blagojevich, who was convicted
on corruption charges in 2011
related to trying in 2008 to sell
President-elect Barack obama’s
vacated Senate seat, received crit-
icism from some republicans, as
well as Democrats.ed by Johnson, who had her life
sentence for a nonviolent drug
offense commuted by Trump in- Johnson has been working
with the White House’s n ew c lem-
ency effort after Trump publicly
asked her last year to submit a list
of names of other people who
deserved commutations, officials
said. She recommended Crystal
munoz, Ty nice Hall and Judith
Negron, who each had their sen-
tences commuted by Trump on
Tuesday.
Johnson is a member of the
informal network of advocates
providing clemency recommen-
dations. former acting attorney
general matthew Whitaker, Dem-
ocratic commentator Van Jones
and Brett Tolman, a former U.S.
attorney in Utah, are also part of
the group, according to a senior
administration official.
The informal effort ramped up
after Johnson reached out to
lawyers and other criminal-jus-
tice advocates to help her seek
commutations for women she
knew in prison, said Inimai Chet-
tiar, legislative director for the
Justice Action Network, a biparti-
san group pushing for criminal
justice change and represented
on the informal task force by
To lman.
Johnson reached out to these
people “and they started meeting
with the White House,” Chettiar
said. “A lice Johnson helped coor-
dinate this.”
putting the White House more
directly in control of the process
that in past administrations has
been housed in the Justice De-
partment, officials said.
Pam Bondi, the former florida
attorney general who served on
Trump’s impeachment defense
team, is also playing a significant
role, vetting applications for po-
tential pardon recipients. Kush-
ner has personally reviewed ap-
plications with White House law-
yers before presenting them to
Trump for final approval, accord-
ing to two senior administration
officials.
Trump, who prefers granting
clemency to people with compel-
ling personal stories or lengthy
sentences, is inclined to grant
more pardons before facing vot-
ers in November, one official said.
“He likes doing them,” t he offi-
cial said, adding that the presi-
dent was unfazed by criticism
over his decision to grant clemen-
cy, including to former Illinois
governor rod r. Blagojevich (D)
and financier michael milken.
The new effort comes at a
pivotal time in Trump’s presiden-
cy, as he is seeking to more
forcefully exert his executive
powers in the wake of his im-
peachment acquittal while also
campaigning for reelection.
Trump has tried to make a direct
appeal to minority voters by re-
peatedly touting his actions on
criminal justice, including with a
Super Bowl ad that featured Alice
Johnson thanking the president
for freeing her from prison.
The effort also represents an
attempt to establish a more orga-
nized way for making clemency
decisions. for most of Trump’s
presidency, his decisions about
whom to pardon appeared to be
based more on cues from celebri-
ties, political allies and fox News
segments than a thorough vetting
of the merits of the case. It also
led to criticism that only the
well-connected were being con-
sidered, rather than the thou-
sands of applicants who were
pressing their cases through the
official Justice Department pro-
cess.
“Trump brags about criminal
justice reform, but instead of
helping any of the 13,000 federal
inmates who have petitioned for
clemency — many of whom are
serving overly harsh sentences
and deserve mercy — Trump
helped political supporters, the
wealthy and well-connected,
those championed by fox News,
and contestants on his TV show,”
the Democratic National Com-
mittee said in a statement follow-
ing the recent pardon announce-
ment.
Trump’s decision to rely on
conservative allies for clemency
decisions also risks further politi-
cizing the pardon process at a
time of fraying confidence in the
ability of the Justice Department
to carry out its duties without
political interference.
While several of the pardons
Trump granted Tuesday went to
well-connected or wealthy associ-
ates, the president also commut-
ed the sentences of three women
who had been convicted of nonvi-
olent offenses — part of the new
task-force effort.
The women were recommend-
clemency from A
Trump’s pardon e≠orts center on new in-house task force
Jabin botsford/the Washington Post
President Trump departs after delivering remarks Friday at the White House to national Border Patrol council members. As he considers granting more pardons, Trump has
assembled a team of advisers to recommend and vet candidates, a group that has been meeting since late last year, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.BY BETH REINHARDThree of the women President
Trump granted clemency to this
week had one thing in common:
They were all in prison with Alice
Johnson, the former drug dealer
whose sentence Trump commut-
ed two years ago.
Crystal munoz was Johnson’s
“adopted daughter” in federal
prison. Ty nice Hall and Johnson
prayed together. And Judith Ne-
gron performed with Johnson in
dance productions.
When Trump freed Johnson in
2018, the three hoped their own
appeals for clemency would one
day also be granted. That day
came Tuesday, when Trump cut
short their sentences, in part
based on Johnson’s recommenda-
tions.
In interviews Wednesday, the
women said they had not spoken
with Johnson in years and were
only vaguely aware of her efforts.
“I knew I would always be in
her heart, but I never knew she
would advocate so hard for me,”
Hall said. “She’s my secret angel.”
The relief granted to the three
women i s the latest example of the
un or tho dox ways that Trump
chooses to exercise his clemency
powers, having sidelined the tra-
ditional pardon bureaucracy ad-
ministered by the Justice Depart-
ment.
The women stand i n contrast to
the well-connected public figures
who were also granted clemency
Tuesday: convicted “junk-bond
king” michael milken, former Illi-
nois governor rod r. Blagojevich,
former New York City police com-
missioner Bernard Kerik and bil-
lionaire Edward DeBartolo Jr.
The men had members of Con-
gress, wealthy campaign donors
and celebrities vouching for them.
The women had their former
prison mate — who was freed
after her case was championed by
reality-television star Kim Kar-
dashian West.
“Every time I think about it, my
eyes fill and the tears just flow,”
Johnson said in a telephone inter-
view Wednesday, speaking of the
release of her friends.
Amy Povah, founder of a pro-
clemency group called CAN-Do,
said she and other advocates for
criminal justice reform submitted
a list of about a dozen meritorious
female offenders directly to the
White House late last year.
“When it boiled down to only
three, it’s not surprising that the
White House put value on the
ones Alice served time with and
knew their character,” s aid Povah,
who was incarcerated for nine
years for drug crimes before re-
ceiving a commutation in 2000.
“You know who those diamonds
are in there who are so deserving,
and you know who the people are
that are still engaging in shenani-
gans.”
for decades, offenders have
filed petitions seeking clemency
with the office of the PardonAttorney in the Justice Depart-
ment. T hat office vets the requests
and sends recommendations to
the deputy attorney general, who
forwards final recommendations
to the White House.
Clemency advocates have long
argued that the Justice Depart-
ment, traditionally led by tough-
on-crime former prosecutors, op-
poses too m any offenders w ho aredeserving of leniency.
“I’m not trying to be the pardon
office or to say people have to go
through me, but I am trying to
offer a little help,” s aid Johnson, a
64 -year-old great-grandmother
who served about 22 years of a life
sentence for cocaine trafficking.
Despite Johnson’s role as an
informal adviser to the president
and her appearance in a SuperBowl ad for the Trump campaign,
federal prosecutors in the West-
ern District of Te nnessee have
opposed her request to cut short
her five years of supervised re-
lease.
“motivated now by continued
greed for money, fame and celeb-
rity, the defendant seeks to throw
off the pesky burden of supervised
release,” U.S. Attorney michaelDunavant, a Trump appointee,
said in a court filing in July. “Unin-
formed members of the public
continue to celebrate her crimi-
nality.”
Johnson said it was “absolutely
crazy” to cast her as a risk to
public safety. She now lives with
her daughter in Arizona, giving
speeches about criminal justice
reform and promoting a memoir.Johnson’s application to end
supervised release is now pend-
ing.
Johnson was held at several
different prisons, including fed-
eral medical Center Carswell in
Te xas, where she met munoz, and
federal Correctional Institution
Aliceville in Alabama, where she
befriended Hall and Negron.
munoz, who spent 12 years in
prison for her role in a marijuana
smuggling ring, described John-
son as a surrogate mother. munoz
was separated from her two baby
daughters when she was impris-
oned.
“A lice was a light in a dark
place,” s aid munoz, 40. “To know
that she had a life sentence and to
see the strength and motivation
that she gave to everyone around
her, it helped me have hope.”
The White House cited m unoz’s
mentoring of other inmates, vol-
unteer work with a hospice pro-
gram and “extraordinary commit-
ment to rehabilitation.”
Hall said she and Johnson com-
miserated during President Ba-
rack obama’s second term when
they were not among a record-set-
ting number of about 1,700 com-
mutations.
“She kind of talked me through
it and gave me moral support,”
said Hall, 36, who served about 14
years of an 18-year sentence for
drug crimes.
Hall completed apprentice-
ships, took college classes and
taught prison educational pro-grams, the White House said.
Negron, who had completed
eight years of a 35-year sentence
for health-care fraud, said she had
never “praise-danced” before she
met Johnson in prison.
“She made this beautiful chore-
ography, and I wanted to be part
of that,” Negron, 48, said by phone
from her home in miami. “It kind
of helped us do our time.”
Negron was convicted of aiding
a $200 million fraud that was one
of the largest mental-health bill-
ing scams in the country.
“Every day, I am trying to com-
pensate and repair the damage,”
she said. “I am grateful I have
been given an opportunity, and I
will continue to pay my dues to
society.”
Johnson’s role in the clemency
process dates to october, more
than a year a fter her release, when
Trump invited her to a criminal
justice speech in South Carolina.
In the middle of his remarks, he
called on Johnson to help him
find other inmates worthy of
clemency.
“You know some great people
that are going to be there for
many, many years, Alice. right?”
Trump asked. “A nd you’re going to
give me some names, all right?”
Johnson told The Washington
Post that she heard an alarm go
off. “That was the moment I’d
been waiting for,” s he said. “That’s
all it took, and then I hit the
ground running.”
[email protected]Trump freed Alice Johnson in 2018. Tuesday, he freed three of her friends.
“I knew I would always be in her heart,
but I never knew she would advocate so hard for
me. She’s my secret angel.”
Tynice Hall, on alice Johnson’s advocating for her release“Alice was a light in a dark place.... To see the
strength and motivation that she gave to everyone
around her, it helped me have hope.”
Crystal Munoz , who like hall was granted clemency by trump on tuesday