June 30, 2020
CNN Analyst Van Jones Privately Helped Trump Develop Police Reform Bill
According to a new report, CNN Analyst Van Jones was instrumental in President Donald Trump’s executive order on police reform.
According to The Grio, Jones played a major role in drafting the bill. However, the bill was called “weak” and a “photo op” by Democrats. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund added that the order must not be “a distraction on the path toward achieving veritable, lasting change.”
Trump’s executive order will create a database to track police officers with multiple instances of misconduct and uses federal grants to encourage local law enforcement agencies to meet certification standards on the use of force. According to the Daily Beast, California human rights attorney Jessica Jackson, and Jared Kushner also helped write the order.
Jones touted the bill on both Inside Politics and 360 with Anderson Cooper but did not say on either show that he had a hand in drafting the bill.
“The executive order is a good thing,” Jones said, “mainly because you saw the support of law enforcement there … There is movement in the direction of a database for bad cops. We have never had a federal database for bad cops, that’s why all these cops go all over the place doing bad stuff… The chokeholds, that’s common ground now between Nancy Pelosi and Trump. Good stuff there.”
Rev. Al Sharpton and many others blasted the order when it was signed.
“I did not think the executive order was worth the paper it was written on,” Sharpton told The Daily Beast.
The police reform bill that passed in the House Friday, which the Senate said it will not pass, would crack down on excessive force by police, ban chokeholds, enforce national transparency standards, and push accountability for officer misconduct with a national database to track offenses.
Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) called the passing of the act a huge step forward in the fight for equality.
“Today’s bipartisan House passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is a big step forward in our march toward achieving the ideal of equal justice under law,” Harris said in a released statement. “This legislation is an opportunity for Congress to meet the American people’s demands by specifically addressing the problem of police brutality and holding officers accountable for misconduct.”