Alice Marie Johnson, who was granted clemency and later pardoned by President Donald Trump, is now leading a national initiative to identify non-violent offenders deserving of a second chance.
Johnson’s life sentence was commuted in 2018 after serving 21 years in prison, and she has now focused her efforts on advocating for criminal justice reform and helping others receive presidential pardons. In an interview on Fox News, Johnson outlined her mission, explaining she is working to find individuals who have paid their debts to society and are victims of a “corrupt system.”
"There are laws that have to be changed because, even in my position, I'm not going to be able to find everyone," she explained. "I am going to find as many as I possibly can find, but I'm also going to be advocating [for change] and looking at the things that are out there, on the books, that need to be changed, but to also do what the president has entrusted me to do, and let's find those individuals who need their second chance, those individuals who had lost hope in a system that was totally corrupt."
“We now know it's not about how much money you have. If you have a corrupt system in place, there is no one safe,” Johnson added.
Johnson was originally sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for her role in facilitating communications for a drug trafficking operation in Memphis, Tennessee during the 1990s. She maintains that she never “touched, saw or sold a single drug,” but admitted to her involvement. She said she was “absolutely not” prepared for her sentence and did not believe it was “warranted.”
Trump commuted her sentence in 2018 and gave her a full pardon in 2020. Earlier this year, Trump appointed her as a pardon czar to lead an effort to locate and evaluate potential pardon recipients.
"It's just incredible to me that my life would take a full-circle journey. Seven years ago, I was sitting in a prison cell…" she stated. "…It's really easy for me because I've lived it, so the president has entrusted me with this mission."
