UPDATED 1/19, 6:27 p.m. ET: Michael "Harry-O" Harris has received a presidential pardon.
According to an exclusive AllHipHop report, outgoing president Donald Trump has commuted the 58-year-old's prison sentence on drug-trafficking and murder charges. Activist Weldon Angelos, who received his own pardon about a month ago, confirmed the news Tuesday, just hours before Trump will leave the White House.
"... This is definitely an injustice they corrected today," he told the publication. "Out of all this drama going on with the White House, something good has coming out of this ... Harry-O had another 10 years and he may not have made it. There’s Covid … its rampant, there's 40,000 people infected in the federal prison system and 190 deaths and its rising every day."
Angelos thanked prison reform activists Alice Marie Johnson and Michael "Hollis" Goldstein for their tireless work in securing Harris' pardon. He also credited Snoop Dogg for raising awareness about the case and using his platform to help free the Death Row Records co-founder.
"I think President Trump can leave with some good," Snoop said. "This is a great thing they are doing. And he wasn’t afraid to say it."
See the original story below.
On his final day in office, Donald Trump is getting ready to rain down pardons. Though he's been a vocal critic of the president, Snoop Dogg is hoping to secure one for an old friend. According a report from the Daily Beast, Snoop is reaching out to Trump in the hopes that he'll pardon Death Row Records co-founder Michael "Harry-O" Harris.
Harris has been in prison for more than 30 years on drug trafficking and murder charges. Snoop brought Harris' case to the attention of Weldon Angelos, a former producer who was pardoned by Trump last year. Angelos had been sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling less than $400 worth of marijuana to an undercover cop.
Angelos reached out to Alice Johnson, a criminal justice advocate who had her life sentence pardoned by the president. After meeting with Snoop and Angelos, Johnson brought the case directly to Trump.
“The president knows how much this case means to me," Johnson told the Daily Beast. "In reviewing Michael Harris’ case, his story, and what he’s gone through, this is such an unfair case. … He should have been home a decade ago. I really felt for this man. I am very hopeful that he will be home before the end of the Trump administration.”
Though presidential pardons at the end of an administration are common, Trump's are due to receive an enormous amount of scrutiny as the twice-impeached Apprentice host leaves office under the cloud of a failed insurrection and much more. He has previously used his pardoning power to shocking ends, overturning the will of military courts who found service members guilty of war crimes and pardoning the Blackwater guards responsible for the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad.
