FILE – In this May 23, 2017, file photo, Chelsea Handler arrives at the Netflix Comedy Panel For Your Consideration Event at the Netflix FYSee Space in Beverly Hills, Calif. Handler announced on Oct. 18, 2017, that she is ending her Netflix talk show after two seasons in order to focus on political activism. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump gave clemency to eleven people, pardoning or commuting their sentences.
The media focused on the more controversial clemency actions such as commuting the sentences of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and financier Michael Milken.
As we reported, you even had a New York Times reporter attacking Trump was breaking norms and acting as both the “executive and judicial branch” because he exercised his Constitutional right to pardon. Of course, the same reporter didn’t have the same reaction when Barack Obama gave clemency to almost 2000 people, including an unrepentant member of a terrorist organization which had bombed Americans.
Comedian Chelsea Handler spread more lies about the clemency actions, actually suggesting they were racist.
“While our president exonerates criminals and releases them from jail, notice what color they all are,” she tweeted.
While our president exonerates criminals and releases them from jail, notice what color they all are.
— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) February 18, 2020
But of course, that wasn’t true despite the fact that the claim was spread by many on the left.
Handler was immediately brought up short by Angela Stanton-King who was one of the people who received clemency.
“I’m BLACK,” Stanton-King advised Handler.
I’m BLACK ☝???? https://t.co/eIZblVKpWM
— Angela Stanton-King (@theangiestanton) February 19, 2020
From Fox News:
Crystal Munoz, a black woman who spent the last 12 years in prison after being convicted on marijuana charges, was also released under Trump’s order after her case was suggested to the president by Alice Marie Johnson, who Trump pardoned in 2018 following Kim Kardashian West’s efforts.
Twitter users also pointed out that Tynice Nichole Hall, a 36-year-old mother who served almost 14 years of an 18-year sentence for allowing her apartment to be used to distribute drugs, was also released by Trump at the behest of Johnson.
When she was advised that her comments were manifestly ignorant, Handler should have just taken the “L” and apologized. Instead she doubled down, arguing somehow that those women weren’t granted clemency by the president when they had been.
“First of all, that was Jared kushner [sic] prison reform and it was inspired by his father. The black people who were released from prison were never criminals to begin with. They had low level drug possessions. Trump just released real criminals and they are all white,” she wrote.
Guessing she didn’t weigh in on Barack Obama and Bill Clinton giving clemency to terrorists. Or Clinton giving clemency to someone who was a donor to his wife’s campaign or to two other people who had given money to his brother-in-law.
Handler doesn’t seem to even understand what she’s saying, that in fact Trump has done more because of the First Step Act that yes, involved a lot of work of Jared Kushner and others, but was championed by the president who delegated Kushner to the effort. So not only has Trump freed non-white people through his own executive action, but there are hundreds more who will be able to get out under the First Step Act, like Clinton Stewart, whose story we reported and whose conviction was highly questionable.
