Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Why Kim Kardashian Is Having Dinner With Jared Kushner And Ivanka Trump

On the down low, reality television star Kim Kardashian West has been currying favor with Jared Kushner for months. And not just about how to stay calm and svelte on camera. Kardashian has been angling for a pardon from President Trump for a woman, Alice Johnson, serving a life sentence for a first-time drug offense. Kardashian West happened upon Johnson’s story on Twitter, and has made it her mission to help her out.

Jared Kushner knows a thing or two about prisons. His father, Charlie Kushner, spent time in a federal prison camp after being accused of a multitude of white collar crimes like tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions, and witness tampering. For years, Kushner carried around a wallet his father had crafted for him with his bare hands — a reminder of what his father had gone through.

While Kushner has abandoned many of the other ventures he once professed loyalty to, prison reform remains at the top of his bucket list. From hosting movers and shakers at the home he shares with Ivanka Trump, to getting Republicans to cosign his ideas, Kushner’s passion for prison reform has not run out of steam.

And that’s a good thing: The First Step Act, a bill Kushner pushed in Congress, allows for nonviolent offenders to serve out the ends of their sentences in halfway houses and prepare inmates in prison for re-entering the world. The vote was 360 people in favor and 59 against. The House passed it.

Kardashian West will not be bringing her husband, Kanye West, her camera crew, or one of her sisters. Instead, she will be confronting the injustice of the modern penitentiary system on her own.

Is prison reform the issue that will bridge the divide between liberals and conservatives, and the one thing that can unite the likes of milquetoast Jared Kushner and human brand synergist Kim Kardashian West?

Only time will tell.

Shira Feder writes. She’s at [email protected]

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.