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The architect behind Congress’s latest successful criminal justice reform bill said President Biden is ‘right’ not to veto the GOP-led DC crime bill that overrides local law.
On Thursday, President Biden caught Congress by surprise by announcing he would not block changes to Washington, DC’s new penal code, just days after his administration criticized the proposal as a violation of “home rule.”
“I mean, honestly, it’s the right thing to do,” Ja’Ron Smith, Trump’s most senior black aide and former head of the Office of American Innovation, told DailyMail.com in an interview.
“The way DC was doing it is the wrong way to do it,” said Smith, one of the key leaders on the First Step Act.
Smith, a DC-area resident, said he had “huge concerns” with the city’s crime bill, which overwhelmingly outpaced Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto. “He is another example of progressive individuals out of touch with these communities, creating incentives for more crime.”
The citywide legislation would repeal mandatory minimum sentences and reduce maximum sentences for crimes like robbery and carjacking. It also allows almost all misdemeanor charges the right to a jury trial.
“I think we need to be much more nuanced in how we handle the criminal justice system, specifically with nonviolent offenders,” Smith said.
I mean, honestly, it’s the right thing to do,” Ja’Ron Smith, Trump’s most senior black aide and former head of the Office of American Innovation, told DailyMail.com in an interview.
Light crowd at CPAC’s second full day on Friday
“But certainly there needs to be a lot more accountability to violent offenders, but also our ways of thinking about crime prevention, through access to opportunity, through investing in police officers and technology around surveillance.”
Some House Democrats said they felt cheated by the president and voted against the legislation because they believed the president would veto it. Progressives said Biden’s veto would run counter to his push for DC statehood.
The First Step Act was intended to reduce some federal sentences and improve conditions in federal prisons.
In a provision known as compassionate release, it was intended to release people who are terminally ill to federal prison or who pose little or no threat to society. However, the data shows that judges are flatly denying many compassionate release requests.
It also allowed those who were in federal prison for crack cocaine offenses and were sentenced before 2010.
Smith spoke to DailyMail.com before speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual gathering of the biggest names in Conservative politics.
But several GOP heavyweights are conspicuously absent this year: Chairman Kevin McCarthy and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell are not on the agenda, and neither are potential 2024 candidates like Florida’s governor. Ron DeSantis or Vice President Mike Pence, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. or Sen. Tim Scott, RS.C.
The annual conference is often a place for Republican starlets to test their appeal with the base, raising questions about whether the conference’s influence is waning as organizer Matt Schlapp faces sexual assault allegations.
Smith said not to read about the absence of some big names.
“There’s a lot going on at once, you know,” he said. “There are other conventions going on around the country, and those are members who attend CPAC pretty regularly, so I wouldn’t look at it that way.”
Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, surrounded by Democrats, Smith said he had been taught that all Republicans are “rich racists.”
“The way DC was doing it is the wrong way to do it,” said Smith, one of the key leaders on the First Step Act.
“But I’ve always been a conservative, I just didn’t know it,” he said.
The former White House adviser is at a crossroads, having worked not only for Trump but also for two other potential presidential candidates: Pence and Scott.
He said he hasn’t given much thought to who he wants to see at the top of the ticket in 2024.
“I’m more trying to get the job done on the ground,” Smith said.
“What’s most important, at least to my leadership, is regardless of who comes out of that primary, that you’re following the playbook that we use in the Trump administration, which is about empowering underserved communities,” he added.
“If we don’t invest with them, if those people don’t have access to the American dream, we’re going to be in trouble for years to come.”