Alice Johnson, the grandmother released by President Trump on the advice of Kim Kardashian, was sentenced to life in prison by a crime bill that Joe Biden co-sponsored, wrote and advocated, The Post may reveal.
As a single mother of five in 1996, Johnson, now 65, was sentenced to five simultaneous life sentences without the chance of being released on a first non-violent drug charge for her involvement in a million-dollar cocaine ring.
Trump changed his mind in June 2018 after lobbying reality TV star and lawyer-in-training Kardashian, and Johnson will speak on Thursday at the finale of the Republican National Convention in 2020.
But Johnson would never have been sentenced to life in prison if not for a drug abuse in 1986 written by doe-Sen. Joe Biden who intensified punishments for drug offenses and targeted disproportionate black people.
President Barack Obama and his veep also denied Johnson’s plea for retaliation three times, including in the final days of her administration, according to a CNN report.
Biden co-authored the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which allowed judges to sentence first-time offenders to life in prison for drug offenses involving more than 5 kilograms of cocaine.
Previously, a person could not be sentenced to more than 20 years for cocaine offenses.
Biden was later praised by his Democratic colleagues in the Senate for his “diligence” in enabling a law that also condemned enormous condemnations between powder and crack cocaine – a drug more commonly used among black Americans.
The law made it so that someone caught trying to sell just 5 grams of crack would receive the same punishment as someone who handled 500 grams of cocaine powder, resulting in a difference of 100 to 1.
The then Delaware senator praised his efforts on the Senate floor and the “striking changes in sentencing law” for which he was responsible.
But by 2008, on the eve of Obama’s speech, Biden was forced to acknowledge the huge racial differences that his bill created and the guilt of bad data.
“Our intentions were good, but a lot of our information was bad,” he said during a rights hearing. “Each of the myths on which we based the difference of condemnation has since been dispelled or changed.”
The Septuagint legislator has faced increased scrutiny of his criminal record since his announcement of his bid in the White House – in particular a 1994 law on crime he wrote, which is accused of contributing to ‘mass incarceration’.
His running mate, Senator Kamala Harris (D-California), has also overseen 1,900 convictions for marijuana as a district attorney in San Francisco.
Together with Johnson, more than 2,000 federal inmates will serve life sentences for nonviolent drug offenses in 2018, according to data from federal corrections analyzed by criminal justice group The Sentencing Project.
Drug offenders make up nearly one-third of federal prisoners sentenced to life in the United States.
Johnson has meanwhile become one of the faces of the Trump administration’s criminal law reforms and appeared in the presidency of the 2020 Super Bowl ad.
She is expected to give a positive address at the finale of Thursday’s Republican convention on how Trump gave her a second chance at life and will not talk about how Biden’s law robbed her of that chance.
The Tennessee woman has previously told how she took the drug trade as a way to provide for her children to lose their jobs and has described the move as “the worst decision of my life.”
Speaking at a White House prison reform event following her release, Johnson thanked Trump for ‘believing’ in her.
‘I’m an example of a woman who got a second chance at life. There are so many others who deserve the same second chance, ‘she said.
Since announcing his own White House bid, Biden has tried to portray himself as a progressive and put distance between himself and his congressional record.
As part of his criminal justice plan, Biden recognized too many black and brown Americans are incarcerated and passed legislation that would end mandatory minimum prison sentences at the federal level.
He has also promised to expand funding for drug treatment and mental health and end the crackdown on crack and powder cocaine he helped introduce.
The Biden campaign and Johnson did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Post on Thursday.
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