Kim Kardashian joins Kamala Harris at White House to talk criminal justice reform
By Arlette Saenz, Nikki Carvajal, Donald Judd and Michael Williams, CNN
Washington (CNN) — Kim Kardashian joined Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Thursday for a roundtable to discuss pardons issued by President Joe Biden – the latest inroad the reality star has made into national criminal justice policy.
The conversation came a day after the president issued pardons for 11 people and commuted the sentences of five others who had been convicted of non-violent drug offenses.
The forum included several people who were pardoned on Wednesday – Jason Hernandez, Bobby Darrell Lowery, Jesse Mosley and Beverly Holcy – who discussed their experiences with the justice system. All four started businesses or non-profits in their communities after their incarceration.
“I’m a big believer in the power of redemption,” Harris said at the event. “Is it not the sign of a civil society that we allow people a way to earn their way back and give them the support and the resources they need to do that?”
Harris thanked Kardashian, who visited the White House multiple times during the Trump administration to push for criminal justice reform, for her advocacy and for “using your platform in a way that has really lifted up the importance of talking about and being dedicated to second chances.”
“I’m just here to help and to spread the word,” Kardashian said, before telling the pardon recipients she was “so excited to be here to hear your stories.”
Harris also used the event to announce the finalization of a new rule removing most restrictions on loans through the Small Business Administration based on a person’s criminal record.
Mosley, one of the roundtable participants, said he felt “overwhelming gratitude for being one of the few that they did pardon.”
“Now I’m sitting at the table with the VP and Kim K.,” he said.
Kardashian said sharing personal stories helps people who have not been in the criminal justice system understand the challenges of reentering society after incarceration.
“Every time I’ve gone and visited a prison, I’ve met some of the smartest individuals with the brightest ideas and to see the changes that are happening to make their reentry easier, I think, is going to be life changing and give so many people hope,” Kardashian said.
In 2018, Kardashian sat down with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, where she was joined by Alice Marie Johnson, whose life sentence was commuted by Trump in 2018 on the heels of the reality TV star’s advocacy. In 2019, she delivered remarks from the White House East Room on a new initiative aimed at helping former inmates get jobs out of prison. She met with Trump at the White House again in 2020.
Kardashian’s advocacy has been credited in part with opening the former president up to the idea of criminal justice reform, eventually leading to the passage of the First Step Act in 2018. The prison-reform law marked a rare moment of bipartisanship during Trump’s presidency, and even some of his harshest critics have lauded its passage.
Her visit also comes one day after Armenian Remembrance Day. Kardashian is of Armenian descent, and Biden in 2021 became the first US president to recognize the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago as a genocide.
Late last year, Kardashian penned an op-ed in Rolling Stone urging Biden to step in amid continued conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The meeting comes as the Biden administration marks “Second Chance Month,” during which Biden pledged to “recommit to building a criminal justice system that lives up to those ideals so that people returning to their communities from jail or prison have a fair shot at the American Dream,” in a presidential proclamation last month.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
The-CNN-Wire
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