Kim Kardashian was at the White House on July 13 to announce a new way she is helping former inmates get back on their feet.
She spoke during President Trump’s Second Chance Hiring conference at the White House. The conference brought together those helping to push forward the Trump administration’s prison reform efforts that started with the First Step Act.
Second Chance Hiring & Re-entry event at the White House today pic.twitter.com/kEUgqITmIE
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 13, 2019
Trump introduced Kardashian and her newest effort.
“This afternoon, we also have an exciting announcement to ensure former inmates can overcome some of the greatest barriers to employment, including limited access to transportation, which is needed for interviews and for jobs,” said Trump.
“To make this announcement, I’d like to invite up a very special guest and a powerful advocate for not only justice reform, but just a good person. And I hear she’s starting to study law,” Trump added. “She’s also one of the most successful people in the entertainment business. Soon she’ll be one of the most successful lawyers—I hate to tell all my lawyers back there. But I knew her father, and I’ll tell you, she’s got good genes—that I can tell you. Good genes for everything. And she’s been a real friend, and her husband has been a real friend of mine. Kim Kardashian West.”
“So I’m so happy to announce today that we have a rideshare partnership where formerly incarcerated people will be gifted gift-cards so that they can get rides to and from job interviews, to and from jobs, family members, and that is so important—so needed,” Kardashian said.
Kardashian’s criminal justice work at the White House began about a year ago, when she asked the White House to let Alice Johnson, a great-grandmother and in her 60s, out of prison. Trump commuted her sentence soon after.
Kardashian’s prison-reform work continued, and she has helped get a rising number of people out of jail early. Her work focuses on freeing low-level drug offenders.
Kardashian also spoke about what led her to study law.
“And after that, I really spent so much time going to different prisons because I really had no connection to anybody on the inside and really just felt like, for me, I am at the place in my life that I wanted to make a difference and just wanted to do the right thing, but I didn’t know how or what to do, or even really what was going on,” she said.
I commend @potus for his decision to mobilize resources across his administration to promote hiring of ex-offenders and give them a second chance. Fits well with my newly reauthorized the Second Chance Act. https://t.co/jUBpb28RLP
— Rob Portman (@senrobportman) June 16, 2019
“And so after going to visit so many different prisons and really sitting down with lifers, with every situation you can possibly imagine, my heart just completely opened up and I wanted to do more,” she added. “So I started to study the law, which is law school, basically, in California.”
Kardashian shared how her studies and tutelage from lawyers she works with helped move her work forward.
“So the best part of it is I learned so much that I don’t even know if—I don’t want to speak for anybody in law school, but I learned so much just, basically, working on memos and being the assistant to them while the First Step Act was happening, and like learning how you get bills passed, and working on it from the ground up. So to get the President’s support and to see it come to fruition was magic.”
