On Thursday evening, the climactic night of the Republican National Convention, Alice Marie Johnson, the grandmother whose prison sentence was commuted by President Trump after Kim Kardashian intervened on her behalf, gave a riveting speech endorsing Trump, asserting, “By the grace of God and the compassion of President Donald John Trump, I stand before you tonight.”
Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole on a first-time non-violent drug charge, but her sentence would have been far more lenient if not for the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, written by then-Senator Joe Biden, according to the New York Post, which noted, “President Barack Obama and his veep also refused Johnson’s pleas for clemency three times, including in the final days of their administration, according to a CNN report.” The Post added of the 1986 bill, “Previously, a person could not be sentenced to more than 20 years for cocaine offenses.”
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