Kenosha Police Union: Jacob Blake Had Knife, Fought Officers, Overcame Taser

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Kenosha Police Union: Jacob Blake Had Knife, Fought Officers, Overcame Taser

(Headline USA) The Kenosha police union on Friday offered the most detailed accounting to date on officers’ perspective of the moments leading up to police shooting Jacob Blake.

Blake had a knife and fought with officers, putting one of them in a headlock and shrugging off two attempts to stun him, according to their account.

The second video of the shooting, which the corporate news media has buried for the most part, confirms that Blake was attacking the officers.

The statement from Brendan Matthews, attorney for the Kenosha Professional Police Association, goes into more detail than anything that has been released by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is investigating.

According to Matthews, the officers were dispatched there because of a complaint that Blake was attempting to steal the caller’s keys and vehicle.

Matthews said officers were aware that Blake had an open warrant for felony sexual assault before they arrived.

Blake was armed with a knife, but officers did not initially see it, Matthews said.

“The officers first saw him holding the knife while they were on the passenger side of the vehicle,” he said.

The bystander who recorded the shooting, 22-year-old Raysean White, said he saw Blake scuffling with three officers and heard them yell, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!” before gunfire erupted. He said he didn’t see a knife in Blake’s hands.

State investigators have said only that officers saw a knife on the floor of the car. They have not said whether Blake threatened anyone with it.

Matthews said officers made multiple requests to Blake to drop the knife, but he was uncooperative. He said officers used a Taser on Blake, but it did not incapacitate him.

“Blake forcefully fought with the officers, including putting one of the officers in a headlock,” Matthews said.

A second stun from a Taser also did not stop him, he said.

As Blake opened the driver’s door of the SUV, Sheskey pulled on Blake’s shirt and then opened fire. Blake’s three children were in the backseat.

“Based on the inability to gain compliance and control after using verbal, physical and less-lethal means, the officers drew their firearms,” Matthews said. “Mr. Blake continued to ignore the officers’ commands, even with the threat of lethal force now present.”

The state Justice Department has released almost no information about Sheskey or the other two officers, Vincent Arenas and Brittany Meronek.

An annual Kenosha Police Department report indicates Sheskey was hired as an officer in 2013.

In an August 2019 interview with the Kenosha News, Sheskey said he had always wanted to go into law enforcement, noting that his grandfather served the city as a police officer for 33 years.

“What I like most is that you’re dealing with people on perhaps the worst day of their lives and you can try and help them as much as you can and make that day a little bit better,” Sheskey told the newspaper. “And that, for the most part, people trust us to do that for them. And it’s a huge responsibility, and I really like trying to help people. We may not be able to make a situation right, or better, but we can maybe make it a little easier for them to handle during that time.”

The Sunday shooting of Blake, a black man, put the nation’s spotlight on Wisconsin and triggered a series of violent nights, including on Tuesday in which two people were killed by an armed civilian.

Blake is paralyzed from the shooting, his family said, and recovering in a Milwaukee hospital.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, who leads the state Justice Department, said in a statement Friday evening that the agency is trying to conduct an impartial investigation and can neither confirm nor deny the union’s version of events.

Ben Crump, an attorney for Blake’s family, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. He said earlier this week that Blake was only trying to break up a domestic dispute and did nothing to provoke police, adding that witnesses didn’t see him with a knife.

Crump has called for the arrest of the officer who shot Blake and for the two other officers involved in the shooting to be fired.

Before Sheskey joined the Kenosha Police Department he worked for the campus police department at University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha from the fall of 2009 to the spring of 2013. He served in various roles, including as a dispatcher, enforcing parking regulations and as a police officer, university records show.

Arenas has been with the Kenosha Police Department since February 2019 and previously served with the U.S. Capitol Police Department from June 2017 through January 2019, authorities said.

Arenas served in the Marines from 2012 to 2017 and did not do any combat deployments, the Marine Corps said.

Meronek joined the Kenosha police force in January. She received a technical diploma from the criminal justice law enforcement academy at Gateway Technical College in May, according to school records.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.

MURDOCK: RNC Shatters Left’s Myth of Racist President

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MURDOCK: RNC Shatters Left’s Myth of Racist President

(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) The chief victim of this week’s Republican National Convention is the Democrat Big Lie that President Donald J. Trump is a minority-and-immigrant-hating racist and xenophobe.

A parade of speakers of color and Americans with foreign accents turned this slander into a smoking, smoldering ruin.

“It is an honor to be with you as a proud Republican and supporter of Donald J. Trump,” said Kentucky’s charismatic attorney general, Daniel Cameron, age 34.

“I also think about Joe Biden, who says, ‘If you aren’t voting for me, you ain’t black,’” he continued. “Who argued that Republicans would put us ‘back in chains.’ Who says there is no diversity of thought in the black community. Mr. Vice President, look at me. I am black. We are not all the same, sir. I am not in chains. My mind is my own. And you can’t tell me how to vote because of the color of my skin.”

“I know what racism looks like. I’ve seen it first hand. In America, it has no resemblance to President Trump,” said NFL veteran Jack Brewer, a black man and lifelong Democrat. “I’m fed up with the way he’s portrayed in the media, who refuse to acknowledge what he has actually done for the black community.”

So what has President Trump done for blacks?

  • Before the China virus capsized everything, Trumponomics delivered blacks and Hispanics the lowest unemployment rates in American history.
  • Thanks to the Trump/GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, $75 billion in private investment have poured into 8,700 Opportunity Zones. They are invigorating low-income, chiefly minority communities.
  • President Trump’s First Step Act has freed from mass incarceration some 3,100 largely black, non-violent inmates.
  • President Trump has secured long-term funds, summer-school Pell Grant access, debt forgiveness, and much more for America’s 101 Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
  • President Trump has increased school-choice options and funded the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, mainly benefiting black children.

But blacks are not the only people of color to gain from President Trump’s public policies.

“President Trump delivered the largest financial funding package ever to Indian country,” Navajo Nation Vice-President Myron Lizer said from Ship Rock, New Mexico. “The $8 billion in CARES Act funding to Indian country was a great start in alleviating the devastating effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted on our Indian tribes.”

“I may be Cuban born, but I am 100-percent American,” said former immigrant Maximo Alvarez. “I choose President Trump because I choose America.”

Democrats did not appreciate Republicans showcasing people whom liberals have considered their personal property. When the Right went high, the Left went low.

Recalling all that his grandfather had witnessed, Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, marveled: “Our family went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.”

Equally pro-Trump state Rep. Vernon Jones, D-Ga., complained, “The Democratic Party does not want Black people to leave the mental plantation they’ve had us on for decades.”

Twitter quickly unleashed some 6,000 posts referring to these black elected officials as “Uncle Toms.”

One revolting Twitter user exploded: “If you were a slave trying to escape slavery these are the two people that [sic] will rat you out to the slave owner.”

On Tuesday night, Slovenian-born First Lady Melania Trump explained: “I studied for the test in 2006 and became an American citizen … with hard work and determination I was able to achieve my own American dream.”

“Get that illegal alien off the stage!” demanded the deeply bigoted former entertainer Bette Midler. She added via Twitter: “Oh, God. She still can’t speak English.”

From Bette Midler to Joe Biden, it’s no surprise that Democrats are so grumpy.

The Republican rainbow of speakers and the Democrats’ bigoted backlash against them have left the Left’s fiercest, ugliest gun hopelessly jammed.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen’s July survey of likely voters found President Trump’s job approval among blacks at 36 percent. If just half of them vote for Trump, it’s bedtime for Biden.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.
Bucknell University’s Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece. 

Trump Ramps Up Biden Attacks Post-Convention at NH Rally

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Trump Ramps Up Biden Attacks Post-Convention at NH Rally

(Headline USA) Fresh off accepting the Republican Party’s nomination, President Donald Trump is looking to raise the alarm about the implications of a Joe Biden victory to voters in battleground states with just over two months until Election Day.

Trump is holding a rally in New Hampshire on Friday evening as he continues to flout coronavirus guidelines and launches an aggressive travel schedule heading into the fall campaign.

In his convention finale a day earlier, Trump blasted Biden as a hapless career politician who will endanger Americans’ safety.

The 70-minute address from the South Lawn of the White House marked Trump’s best effort yet to frame the general election as a dire choice between two futures for the nation — a theme he was expected to amplify on the campaign trail.

“We have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years,” Trump said Thursday, referring to the former senator and vice president’s career in Washington.

Trump departed the White House by motorcade Friday, requiring it to weave through District of Columbia streets packed with demonstrators participating in a commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

The motorcade made it to Joint Base Andrews without incident. Isolated groups of protesters on street corners made their presence felt through gestures directed at the motorcade.

In New Hampshire, a campaign advisory said masks for attendees are “required” in accordance with Republican Gov. Chris Sununu’s executive orders, and would be provided.

Similar indoor-outdoor rallies at aircraft hangars in recent weeks have seen limited compliance with face covering mandates. The event format has become the Trump campaign’s go-to amid the pandemic.

Trump’s pace of travel is expected to pick up to a near-daily pace. Biden, who has largely weathered the pandemic from his Delaware home, announced Thursday that he will soon resume limited campaign travel.

Trump last attempted to visit New Hampshire six weeks ago, when he called off a trip on the eve of a scheduled campaign rally citing the threat from a tropical storm — but also as his campaign worried that attendance would be sparse amid a nationwide surge in virus cases.

That rally was to have been Trump’s first since his return to the campaign trail in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June, where he spoke to a half-empty arena and an anticipated overflow crowd never materialize.d. Left-wing activists who coordinated on social media later took credit for sabotaging the event by claiming seats with no intention of attending.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Leftist Hacks Accuse Trump Admin of Hatch Act Violations at RNC

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Leftist Hacks Accuse Trump Admin of Hatch Act Violations at RNC

(Headline USA) Two White House officials allegedly violated the Hatch Act by participating in choreographed events that were aired during this week’s Republican National Convention, according to two separate ethics complaints filed by government watchdog groups.

They claim Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, violated the law when he appeared during a taped naturalization ceremony on White House grounds with President Donald Trump, the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, wrote in a complaint filed Thursday.

On Wednesday, two law school professors filed a separate complaint against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, claiming he committed an “egregious violation” by delivering a video-taped speech from Israel.

The Hatch Act is a 1939 law that is intended to limit the commingling of political activity and government business, though it does not apply to the president and vice president. While Wolf and Pompeo were ostensibly performing their official duties, the watchdog groups contend the events were staged and intended for use during an overtly political event — the convention — and are thus violations of the act.

The Trump White House has taken an ambivalent approach to the ethics rules and norms that guided past administrations. And Wolf and Pompeo now join a substantive list of other Trump officials who have taken a cavalier approach specifically toward the Hatch Act.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows dismissed concern about such violations on Wednesday, telling Politico, “Nobody outside of the Beltway really cares.”

Past secretaries of state have gone to lengths to avoid the appearance of partisan political activity, particularly during nominating conventions for the administrations they served.

Pompeo’s speech shattered that precedent and even went against the guidance he issued to American diplomats last month, advising that federal law prevented them from taking overt sides in the presidential campaign.

It was filmed during a diplomatic mission, using Old Jerusalem as a backdrop. In it, he praised Trump’s foreign policy and also celebrated the relocation of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an issue of particular importance to white evangelicals who are a crucial voting block for Trump.

“This video is an egregious violation of the Hatch Act,” wrote Claire O. Finkelstein and Richard W. Painter, the two law school professors. “Secretary Pompeo at the same time as he was on a diplomatic mission to Israel gave a partisan political speech for an RNC campaign video in which he referred to the U.S. embassy in Israel, said that a candidate in a partisan election — Donald Trump — should get credit for the relocation of that embassy.”

Wolf, meanwhile, participated in a naturalization ceremony with five newly minted citizens on White House grounds.

He stood before a podium, made introductory remarks and administered the oath of allegiance. Trump also appeared at the ceremony, spoke for several minutes and handed out certificates.

“By participating in this event that mixed official government business with support of a political party and a candidate for partisan political office, Mr. Wolf appears to have used his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election,” Noah Bookbinder, CREW’s executive director, wrote in the complaint to the Office of Special Counsel. “His participation in … this event constitutes political activity prohibited by law.”

The White House declined to comment.

The complaint from Finkelstein, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, and Painter — George W. Bush’s former ethics lawyer, a onetime Democratic Senate candidate, and a University of Minnesota law professor — requests an inspector general investigation into Pompeo’s State Department.

They also called for a review of whether State Department employees who helped with logistics could have violated the Hatch Act, as well.

The penalty for violating the Hatch Act can include removal from federal service, debarment from federal employment for a period of under five years, suspension, reprimand, or a civil penalty that cannot be greater than $1,000.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Judicial Watch: New Strzok–Page Emails Show FBI ‘Researched’ Trump’s Tweets

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Judicial Watch: New Strzok–Page Emails Show FBI ‘Researched’ Trump’s Tweets

The biased FBI agents at the heart of the conspiracy to frame President Donald Trump on claims of Russian collusion also pushed investigations into Trump’s anti-Obama tweets according to a conservative accountability watchdog.

Judicial Watch announced its latest Freedom of Information lawsuit had yielded 323 pages of emails between FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

Despite the agency’s effort at foot-dragging on the processing of the FOIA-requested emails, the new break could continue to add to the build up of public outrage as the Justice Department prepares for the imminent conclusion of a criminal probe by US Attorney for Connecticut John Durham.

It is not presently known whether Strzok or Page is a subject of that investigation or whether either has cooperated as witnesses in it.

After then-candidate Trump issued a series of tweets on March 4, 2017 that he suspected the Obama administration had wiretapped him, three of the lead officials involved with the “Crossfire Hurricane” sting operation into Trump’s Russia contacts discussed “[d]oing some research” into the tweets.

Officials publicly denied the wiretapping, and some in the Obama administration and its leftist media allies mocked him for his paranoia, but the suspicion was later validated that the FBI was spying on at least one of his campaign officials, Carter Page—and likely many others.

The correspondence among the top officials reflects their awareness at the time of the “sensitivity” of the spying.

On March 22, in response to a CNN correspondent’s remark, “When this eventually becomes public, it will be more picked over than even the Clinton investigation was” Strzok, who oversaw both operations, confirmed “He’s right.”

In fact, the email correspondence shows the agents’ deep reliance on the media—in particular outlets like CNN and the New York Times—which they were proven to have used in a sort of symbiotic manner, feeding the reporters selective leaks that the reporters would then use to further justify their pursuit of the investigation as a matter of public interest.

The agents frequently fretted over inaccuracies in the reporting while discussing briefings with key senators like Richard Burr, R-NC, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee; and former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who was a liaison to the agency.

After one error-ridden story in March, Strzok wrote to Page: “I believe [FBI public affairs flak] Mike [Kortan] already discussed with Lisa the need to bring the NYTs back in today for a short meeting.”

Rep. Biggs Drafts Bill to Raise Penalties For Illegals Trying to Vote

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Rep. Biggs Drafts Bill to Raise Penalties For Illegals Trying to Vote

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., introduced a bill this week that would increase penalties for illegal immigrants convicted of casting fraudulent votes.

The legislation, called the Voter Integrity Protection Act, would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to make it an aggravated felony for illegal immigrants to vote in federal elections.

This means voting illegally would be considered a deportable offense under the new law.

Illegal immigrants convicted of this felony would face expedited deportation, according to the bill.

The current punishment for illegal immigrants convicted of casting fraudulent votes is a fine and up to one year in prison, according to Biggs.

“American citizens have a tremendous privilege to vote in free elections to decide the future of our constitutional republic,” Biggs said in a statement.

“American citizens alone choose our political leaders, which is why I am introducing the Voter Integrity Protection Act,” he added.

It is much easier for illegal immigrants to vote in federal elections than most people think, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

Because illegal aliens can apply for driver’s licenses, they can also select that they want to be registered to vote because of the National Voter Registration Act, which mandated that ”states provide individuals with the opportunity to register to vote at the same time that they apply for a driver’s license or seek to renew a driver’s license.”

As a result, thousands of illegal immigrants have been mistakenly registered to vote.

In 2018, the California Department of Motor Vehicles found that 1,500 illegal aliens had been registered.

“Our elections have no room for fraudulent or fallacious voting, and illegal aliens who try to cast ballots to interfere in our nation’s elections must be held accountable and punished,” Biggs said. “Our sacred privilege to vote should never be diluted by illegal aliens.”

Joy Reid Compares Trump to Fidel Castro After RNC Acceptance Speech

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Joy Reid Compares Trump to Fidel Castro After RNC Acceptance Speech

MSNBC host Joy Reid compared President Donald Trump to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and a number of other totalitarians after his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday.

“All I have to say is as I’m watching this, I’m thinking Fidel Castro, Julius Caesar, Mobutu Sese Seko,” said Reid, who famously gushed over many of the lackluster performances during last week’s Democratic convention.

“That was not an American president giving an acceptance speech. That was a monarch,” she continued. “It was—it was very much like what Castro used to do, an hour and 10 minutes, that clocked in.”

Trump’s acceptance speech is what the U.S. would look like if he overturned democracy and declared himself a dictator, Reid continued.

“He made the White House into the Trump palace,” she said.

“If democracy in America ever falls and we become a complete autocracy with a decrepit leader and his corrupt family moving their trunks into the White House and never leaving, if we become—if we become the old [Democratic Republic of Congo], you know, or we become what Brazil is now, if we just fall as a democracy, tonight is what it will look like,” she went on to claim.

Reid’s comment about Castro is particularly interesting considering several members of the Democratic Party have openly praised Castro’s communist policies.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., came under fire during the presidential primary for past comments he had made in support of Castro’s literacy program, and he refused to disavow his past praise even after being confronted.

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., who was reportedly on Joe Biden’s vice presidential short-list, praised Castro in 2016 after Castro’s death, saying that “the passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.”

Reid has never publicly criticized Sanders or Bass for their comments, but she had no problem likening Trump to a “decrepit, corrupt monarch.”

“This was a crime,” she said of Trump’s acceptance speech. 

“Every Cabinet member that was sitting there was violating the Hatch Act,” she falsely claimed, in reference to a federal law that prevents some officials from engaging in political activities under specific circumstances.

Those provisions did not apply to the convention speech. Nonetheless, Reid continued in her rant: “Ivanka Trump was violating the Hatch Act. This was repugnant to see a campaign sign festooned on our property, on the White House, with a big iron gate outside so that the people can’t even come in. This was repugnant. This would be the end of America. If this is what we’re going to be, this won’t be a democracy. That’s a monarchy. It was repugnant.”

CDC Flip-Flops on Testing Guidance After Backlash

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CDC Flip-Flops on Testing Guidance After Backlash

Just a few days after quietly changing its guidance on COVID-19 testing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention flip-flopped once again and said those who do not show any coronavirus symptoms should still be tested.

The CDC revised its testing guidance on Monday, limiting test to only those who show symptoms.

Those who do not show symptoms “do not necessarily need a test,” even if they were exposed to an infected person, according to the new guidance.

The change prompted backlash from many who argued that asymptomatic carriers should be preemptively tested since the original concern with COVID-19 was that asymptomatic people would spread the virus unknowingly.

After the criticism began to mount, CDC Director Robert Redfield backtracked and said that those who come in contact with a confirmed or probably COVID-19 patient should be tested, even if they don’t show symptoms.

“Testing is meant to drive actions and achieve specific public health objectives,” Redfield said.

“Everyone who needs a COVID-19 test, can get a test,” he continued. “Everyone who wants a test does not necessarily need a test; the key is to engage the needed public health community in the decision with the appropriate follow-up action.”

This is just the latest example of inconsistency from the CDC. The agency’s guidance on masks, for example, has changed multiple times over the past few months.

At first, the CDC advised people against wearing masks, arguing that they would not help unless the wearer was sick. But now the CDC’s guidance encourages everyone to wear a mask while in public, regardless of whether the wearer is sick.

The agency also sent faulty tests to labs in the early days of the pandemic, which resulted in massive testing shortages when the states needed them the most.

This latest lip-flop will only further undermine the American public’s trust in the CDC and the rest of our health experts, said Dr. Peter Hotez, a dean at Baylor College of Medicine.

“While it’s good CDC is walking it back, this misstep comes at a price,” Hotez told USA Today. “The American people are losing confidence in the U.S. public health response to COVID-19.”

AOC Allies Try to Block Obama Alums from Biden’s Environmental Team

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AOC Allies Try to Block Obama Alums from Biden’s Environmental Team

Now that presidential candidate Joe Biden has awarded Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., a chair on his environmental council, her liberal climate change affiliates are demanding that Biden agree not to work with Obama-era establishment Democrats who may be less willing to push for radical action.

Ocasio–Cortez successfully forced Biden to change his climate change agenda and add elements of the Green New Deal to it. But this isn’t enough for many leftist activists who fear he will prioritize the oil and gas industry after he is elected.

At least two activist groups, Justice Democrats and Sunrise Movement—both of which Ocasio–Cortez has worked with—are circulating a petition demanding that Biden “keep fossil fuel influence out” of his transition team, Cabinet or campaign adviser roles.

If he doesn’t agree to these demands, the groups are threatening to withhold support from Biden’s campaign.

“There is a lingering distrust from the progressive wing of the party,” Collin Rees, a senior campaigner with Oil Change U.S., told the Washington Examiner.

“There is real concern here if you are stocking advisers with fossil-fuel representatives, it will depress turnout, and it will make it hard for Biden to prove he is serious on these things,” he said.

The problem with the Obama administration, according to leftists, is that it was not progressive enough when it came to climate change.

Because of this, the Biden campaign needs to embrace “new voices,” said Rees, though he acknowledged it would be a “tough hurdle” to convince Biden to expel all of Obama administration alumni.

Obama alumni, however, have pushed back on leftists’ allegations.

“I get if you go backwards and say the Obama administration wasn’t green. Fine. But at the time, it looked extremely green,” a former Obama administration official told the Examiner. “Anything you say today might not look the same five to 10 years from now.”

Ocasio–Cortez has already made it clear that she plans to pressure the Biden campaign to continue moving to the left on environmental issues.

“She believes the movement will only be successful if we continue to apply pressure both inside and outside the system,” Ocasio–Cortez’s spokeswoman, Lauren Hitt, said in a statement. “This is just one element of the broader fight for just policies.”

Trump Pardons RNC Speaker and Criminal-Justice Reform Advocate Alice Johnson

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Trump Pardons RNC Speaker and Criminal-Justice Reform Advocate Alice Johnson

(Headline USA) President Donald Trump pardoned a woman on Friday who was a featured speaker on the final night of the Republican National Convention and had praised him as a compassionate leader.

Trump pardoned Alice Marie Johnson, who had spent more than two decades serving life without parole for a nonviolent drug offense.

She had been convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts related to a Memphis-based cocaine trafficking operation.

Trump commuted her life sentence in 2018 at the urging of celebrity Kim Kardashian West, allowing her early release.

A commutation shortens or eliminates a sentence; the pardon signifies forgiveness and restores certain civil rights.

Johnson had spoken at the convention about the power of redemption and praised Trump.

She said during Thursday’s address that what she did was wrong, but that sentences need to be fair and just.

“Truth is, there are thousands of people just like me, who deserve the opportunity to come home,” Johnson told convention viewers.

Trump said at the White House Friday that Johnson had done an “incredible job” since her release, identifying additional prisoners who also could be eligible for early release.

“We’re very proud of Alice and the job you’ve done and what you represent,” Trump said.

Johnson was clearly emotional when Trump handed her the pardon document. She clutched it close, then bowed her head during a prayer.

Trump has sought to highlight criminal justice reform leading up to November’s election as he reaches out to African American voters. He signed into law a bill in 2018 that gave judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders and enhanced employment and training opportunities for many federal prisoners.

Johnson said Thursday that she was free “by the grace of God and the compassion of President Donald John Trump.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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