Trump Names Former Drug Prisoner Anne Marie Johnson As ‘Pardon Czar’ While Continuing to Appoint Prohibitionists

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. 

Trump made a public spectacle in 2019 of granting clemency to Johnson, a black grandmother who had served almost 22 years for a first-time, nonviolent drug crime until she was advocated for by Kim Kardashian. On her reality show, Kim is shown meeting about Johnson with Trump, who only wants to talk about her suck-up then-husband Kanye West. 

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.

At the press event, standing next to a nervous-looking Tiger Woods, Trump (who's already spending taxpayer money playing lots of golf) said that Blacks contributed to our country's greatness by going to the polls and electing him, "a nice guy." He pointed to Johnson, saying she said was "in prison for doing something that today probably wouldn't be prosecuted." After calling himself a King yesterday, he asked the crowd, "Should I run again? You tell me." He ended with calling immigrants criminals and drug dealers, as he so often does. 

Trump's cabinet and agency nominees are looking more like Heritage Foundation/Project 2025 prohibitionists than reformers, and it's not looking good for legalization or even rescheduling at the national level in the next four (or more) years. But hey, those who continue to be imprisoned or arrested for marijuana or other drug crimes can always apply for clemency later from Mr. Nice Guy. 

Meanwhile, another looks-like-a-Nazi salute (from Steve Bannon) at CPAC, where Musk and Ted Cruz wielded chainsaws onstage. With what devils are we making deals? At least Biden released Leonard Peltier, and commuted the sentences of nearly 2500 victims of the crack/cocaine sentencing disparity he championed while in Congress. But very few marijuana prisoners were pardoned by him, only those convicted of minor possession charges on federal parklands. We seem to swing from do-nothing (or very little) politicians to do-something ones, even when that something proves disastrous.