(Photo Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Reality Star Turned Lawyer Speaks At White House

Kim Kardashian West is studying to become a lawyer like her late father, Robert Kardashian. In the meantime, she’s also thrown herself into prison reform advocacy, visiting prisons–including California’s notorious San Quentin–to meet with inmates she believes were wrongly convicted. Kim’s volunteer work earned her an invitation to the White House yesterday, where she spoke at an event about criminal justice reform.

Kim got a standing ovation when she took the stage. President Donald Trump called her “a great friend.”

Kardashian said she decided to study law after researching cases like the trial of Alice Johnson, a black grandmother who was sentenced to life in prison for a non-violent drug offense. She met with Trump last year to discuss Johnson’s case, and shortly afterward, Trump pardoned Johnson and she left prison for the first time in decades.

“I’d gotten to the place in my life where I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to do the right thing. My heart just completely opened up and I wanted to do more. So, I started studying law,” Kim said at the event.

During the event, Trump discussed the First Step Act, legislation he signed in December to make it easier for convicted felons to start over. But as Trump acknowledged, the legislation really was a “first step,” and there is much more work to be done in order to reform the criminal justice system.