 |
| Johnson at a celebration of the First Step Act in 2019 |
During a press event marking Black History Month held even as his administration worked to dismantle DEI, President Trump announced that Alice Marie Johnson will serve as "a designated pardon official" at
the White House. The announcement comes on the heels of Trump making a show of securing the release of schoolteacher Marc Fogel after he spent 3 1/2 years in a Russian prison on a minor marijuana charge, and taking criticism for not doing the same for US prisoners.
Johnson, who appeared in a SuperBowl ad to tout Trump's criminal justice record, responded to Roger Stone's 2020 commutation by Trump diplomatically in the Washington Post. Stone “is not one that I have personally advocated for, but that there’s movement on clemency makes me hopeful that there will be more,” Johnson said. “The people I am advocating for have spent years in prison and have proven that they rehabilitated themselves.”
Johnson and Weldon Angelos of The Weldon Project, who was granted clemency by Trump along with Stone and Paul Manafort, were instrumental in securing dozens of commutations for drug-war prisoners on Trump's last days in office. Johnson's organization "Taking Action For Good" works for clemency and pardons for prisoners.
Fox News’s Brett Baier tripped Trump up during a 2023 interview where Trump brought up Johnson, who he said “got treated terribly” and “unfairly,” equating her treatment to his own. “But she’d be killed under your plan,” Baier pointed out, alluding to Trump's repeated calls for executing drug dealers.