Kim Kardashian returned to the White House more than four years after her initial meeting with then-President Donald Trump.
On Thursday, April 25, the 43-year-old Kardashians star joined Vice President Kamala Harris, White House public engagement director Steve Benjamin, and several recently pardoned former criminals for a roundtable conversation about criminal justice reform.
Harris began the meeting by thanking Kardashian for her efforts for inmates in the United States.
“I want to thank Kim for your advocacy and for using your platform in a way that has really lifted up the importance of talking about and being dedicated to second chances,” Harris said in a video of the meeting released by the White House on YouTube.
During the discussion, Kardashian and Harris spoke about the SKIMS founder’s previous work persuading Trump to grant pardons to detained men and women. In 2018, she made headlines when she successfully campaigned for Trump’s pardon of Alice Marie Johnson, an Alabama woman sentenced to life in prison in the 1990s for a first-time nonviolent drug charge. She then did the same for numerous people across the country who were thought to have been wrongfully convicted or sentenced too harshly, including lobbying for death row inmates to be granted stays of execution.
“I am extremely honored to be here to hear your stories today, and I believe it is critical to share and amplify them because there are so many people in your situation who could benefit from the inspiration,” Kardashian said, addressing the newly pardoned panelists, which included Beverly Holcy, Jason Hernandez, Bobby Darrell Lowery, and Jesse Mosley, according to USA Today. “I’m just here to help and spread the word.”
Harris also mentioned wanting to reduce or pardon sentences for specific crimes, including marijuana charges.
“For example, on marijuana, we have pardoned all people for federal convictions for simple marijuana possession,” she stated, alluding to the Biden administration’s efforts on the subject. “Many of you have heard me remark that I don’t believe individuals should be jailed for consuming marijuana. And these pardons represent an extension of that methodology.”
According to the site, Kardashian also discussed how her advocacy work “inspired” her to study law.
“It was actually in this very room that I was in years ago, my first clemency meeting, that really inspired me to take a journey,” Kardashian went on to say. “I didn’t know a whole lot, and I was inspired to go to law school and really further my education to see what I can do to help.”
Kardashian announced in May 2019 that she was studying for the bar test, following in the footsteps of her late father, Robert Kardashian, who represented O.J. Simpson in the 1995 murder trial of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. In December of the same year, she announced that she had passed the “baby bar” examination.