Music Video Director Blasts Kim Kardashian for Helping Free Alice Johnson to 'Score Some PR Points'

Joseph Kahn's comments follow a meeting between Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, where the two discussed prison reform and securing a pardon for Alice Marie Johnson, who has been in an Alabama prison since 1996.

Music video director Joseph Kahn took to Twitter on Wednesday to blast Kim Kardashian for kissing Donald Trump’s ass to pardon Alice Marie Johnson in order to land some good publicity.

Kahn—who’s worked with everyone from Jennifer Lopez to Dr. Dre to Imagine Dragons—wrote, “What Kim Kardashian has done is used her connection with Trump to free a family member and score some PR points. In return, the right wing Trump party gets to use it as an example of his liberalism and heart and not do anything else. It’s called propaganda,” in the beginning of a series of tweets.

He continued, “So the lesson here is sucking up to Trump works in our banana republic. Democracy RIP.”

Kim met with Trump to discuss prison reform on May 30, and to secure a pardon for 62-year-old Johnson. A week later, Johnson was officially granted clemency. She had been in an Alabama prison since 1996 where she was serving a life sentence without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense. 

Kim first became aware of Johnson’s story in the fall, and had her own lawyer help with the clemency petition. Since then, there were months of behind-the-scenes talks between Kardashian and Trump's son-in-law/White House senior adviser Jared Kushner about the case. After the meeting, Kim said that [Trump] “really spent the time to listen to our case that we were making for Alice," also adding she was "very hopeful that this will turn out really positively.”

Her meeting also followed Kanye West’s social media onslaught of MAGA imagery and related views. It’s no wonder Kahn thinks this was all a publicity stunt to make Kardashian and company look good.

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