President Trump said Thursday that he supports prison reform and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ opposition doesn’t represent his administration’s position.
“If he doesn’t [support reform], then he gets overruled by me. Because I make the decision, he doesn’t,” Trump said during a phone interview broadcast on “Fox and Friends.”
Sessions, an opponent of criminal justice reform, argues the pending First Step Act would make the country less safe, threatening one of the top priorities of presidential adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The legislation passed the House of Representatives in May with a 360-59 vote, but the Senate has not acted.
For reform advocates, the bill was a half-measure, taking on various prison-related reforms without changing sentencing laws, which would be a tougher sell for conservative lawmakers.
Among other things, the First Step Act would ban the shackling of pregnant prisoners. It would expand annual good-time credit to 54 days off a sentence, from 47; reduce the age for elderly inmate compassionate release from 65 to 60; require inmates to be within 500 miles of families; and authorize $250 million over five years for work-training programs for prisoners.
Trump spoke about countermanding Sessions after discussing a Thursday visit by musician Kanye West to the White House. West is expected to discuss prison reform. His wife Kim Kardashian West attended a prison reform and clemency discussion at the White House last month before meeting with Trump in the Oval Office.
In June, Trump released drug convict Alice Johnson at Kardashian West’s request. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he was “actively looking” for other similarly situated prisoners. “A lot of people” are in prison “for many, many years, and there’s no reason for it,” he said.
“[West] wants to help people,” Trump said in his Fox News interview. “More than anything is prison reform because his wife was terrific, Kim. She brought the attention to Mrs. Johnson where I could look. You have many people like Mrs. Johnson in jail for another 35 years on a charge that, frankly everything is serious, but you don’t get life imprisonment because you’re talking over a telephone about something.”
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