Snoop Dogg thanked former President Donald Trump for granting a last-minute pardon to Death Row Records co-founder Michael “Harry O” Harris, The New York Post reports.
Although he was often an outspoken critic of Trump, Snoop Dogg had been part of the lobbying effort to commute Harris’ sentence during the last days of Trump’s presidency. Leading the charge were criminal justice reform advocates Alice Marie Johnson and Weldon Angelos, both of whom Trump had previously forgiven.
“It’s a great job for the president and his team on the way out,” said Snoop Dogg during a call with Johnson and Angelos after the news (his comments were shared with Post with permission from Snoop Dogg). “They did a great job while they were there and they did a great job on their way out. Let them know that I love what they did. “
Harris played a crucial role in founding Death Row Records: In 1992, while in prison, he gave Suge Knight $ 1.5 million to help him open the label. Death Row was to be home to Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Tupac when West Coast rap exploded in the early nineties.
Like The Daily Beast previously reported, Harris spent almost 30 years in prison for attempted murder and charges of cocaine trafficking. His sentence was expected to last until 2028, although efforts to obtain forgiveness or compassionate release have increased this year. Harris reportedly suffers from an autoimmune disease, and the Federal Correctional Institution Lompoc, California, where he was being held, was one of many prisons to suffer a devastating Covid-19 outbreak last year.
Before official pardon, Johnson said The Daily Beast about efforts to get Harris’ clemency, saying, “The president knows how much this case means to me … When reviewing Michael Harris’s case, his history and what he went through, this is such an unfair case … He was supposed to be home a decade ago. I really feel for this man. I am very hopeful that he will be home before the end of the Trump administration. “