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Trump faces backlash over Super Bowl ad with Alice Marie Johnson

Alice Marie Johnson, who had her sentence commuted by U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks at the 2019 White House Prison Reform Summit and First Step Act celebration. Hosted in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., On Monday, April 1, 2019. (Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

President Trump’s Super Bowl campaign ad that featured Alice Marie Johnson, the woman who was freed from prison after serving 21 years for a nonviolent drug offense, is drawing criticism.

After Kim Kardashian West learned about Johnson’s story, she met with Trump in 2018 to discuss helping the 64-year-old and criminal justice reform as a whole. A week later, the president commuted her sentence.

“While this administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance,” the White House said in a statement at the time.

The commercial featured Johnson and included a clip of her after she was released from prison, crediting the president for her release.

“Alice Johnson was sentenced to serve life in prison for a nonviolent drug offense,” the commercial said. “Thanks to President Trump people like Alice are getting a second chance. Politicians talk about criminal justice reform. President Trump got it done. Thousands of families are being reunited.”

Johnson tweeted the ad Sunday, saying: “Two Super Bowls ago I was sitting in a prison cell. Today I am a free woman and my story was featured in a Super Bowl Ad. I will spend the rest of my life fighting for the wrongly and unjustly convicted! God Bless America!”

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