Meek Mill pulls out of Trump panel on prison reform

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Rapper Meek Mill decided not to participate in a prison reform panel alongside President Trump at the White House.

The panel called the Prison Reform Summit was supposed to take place on Friday, but the rapper born Robert Williams didn't want to be a distraction.

"I was originally scheduled to be part of a panel on prison reform at the White House to help shed light on the issues within the system," Meek said in a statement to Rolling Stone. "Unfortunately, the focus turned to the President and myself, which concerned me that it might take away from creating a positive result from today's discussions. As a result, I decided not to attend so that the focus would be solely on fixing our prison system."

Meek added: "Most importantly I remain fully committed to improving our criminal justice system."

The 30-year-old rapper was arrested for violating the terms of his probation last fall and was released in April after credibility issues with a police officer witness.

For the last 10 years, Meek’s case was presided over by Judge Genece Brinkley.

Meek was originally arrested in 2007 and was convicted of seven charges involving guns and drugs.

He currently has a Jay-Z-produced docuseries in the works about the ongoing problems in the criminal justice system.

The Prison Reform Summit will be moderated by political commentator Van Jones where over 100 policymakers and activists will be present, USA Today reports.

"As you know, I'm on the left side of Pluto," Jones said. "But one thing I know is that it’s one of these strange issues that the more people engage on it, the more stupidity they see in the system. The more we can get the Trump White House and the Republican party to engage in this issue at all, the more progress we'll make, and then I think more reform leads to more reform."