In a tweet on Thursday, President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced his plan to grant a full pardon to conservative political commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to violating federal campaign finance laws. "He was treated very unfairly by our government!” the president wrote.
When D'Souza was first accused of routing $20,000 through associates to the campaign of New York senate candidate Wendy Long, he maintained he was innocent, but later pivoted and pleaded guilty. In 2014, he entered a guilty plea to avoid prison time and a Manhattan judge sentenced him to five years of probation, including eight months in a supervised “community confinement center.”
The prosecutor in the case, former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, tweeted Thursday morning: "The President has the right to pardon but the facts are these: D'Souza intentionally broke the law, voluntarily pled guilty, apologized for his conduct & the judge found no unfairness. The career prosecutors and agents did their job. Period."
Although most presidents wait until the end of their term to grant controversial pardons, D’Souza marks Trump's fifth so far. He's already pardoned anti-immigrant sheriff Joe Arpaio, the first black world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, and former aide Scooter Libby.
Here's what you should know about Dinesh D’Souza, the latest person to receive clemency from Trump.
He's an author and filmmaker behind popular anti-Left books and movies.
A native of Mumbai, India, D’Souza came to the U.S. at age 18 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1991.
After graduating from Dartmouth College, he worked for the Reagan administration as a policy analyst. Since then, he's written several best-selling books with right-wing and religious messages, including What's So Great About Christianity, in which D'Souza "responds head-on to the anti-God arguments," according to an Amazon description. His latest, The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left, was released last year and claims that the American left is responsible for spreading fascist ideas in the United States.
His 2016 documentary Hillary's America—a polemic against Clinton and critique of the Democratic Party—became "the top-grossing documentary of the year ... at the U.S. box office," according to The Hollywood Reporter, making $5.2 million in its first dozen days. The film "doesn't pretend to be nonpartisan," The Hollywood Reporter pointed out, calling the Clintons depraved crooks and associating the Democratic Party with "slavery, lynchings, the KKK and forced sterilization."
In the film, he implies his conviction was a politically motivated attack in response to his hugely successful 2012 film, 2016: Obama's America, which heavily criticized Barack Obama, according to a New York Times review. “If you make a film criticizing the most powerful man in the world,” he says in Hillary's America, "expect the empire to strike back.”
D'Souza is married to Debbie Fancher and together they have three grown children. The couple wed in 2016 (it was their second marriage each). Sen. Ted Cruz's father, Pastor Rafael Cruz, officiated at the ceremony, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
He peddles conspiracy theories.
According to Vox's Dylan Matthews, D’Souza was a member "in good standing of American conservative intellectual life" for many years, serving in the Reagan administration and "aligning with respected conservative think tanks." He also served as a fellow at the Hoover Institute.
But around 2007, D'Souza's work took on a more "conspiratorial, hyperbolic tone." His book The Enemy at Home was released the same year, in which Vox reports he writes:
"In faulting the cultural left, I am not making the absurd accusation that this group blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world. The Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks were the product of this visceral rage."
Now, he's known for his promotion of conspiracy theories, use of racially charged language, and tweeting about "fake news." In 2010, he stirred up controversy in a Forbes story titled, "How Obama Thinks," claiming Obama adopted "the cause of anticolonialism" from his Kenyan father, Barack Obama Sr.
A Mother Jones article said his extremist views can be traced to his time as the editor of The Dartmouth Review, where he reportedly outed gay classmates.
"Much of what D’Souza did in college as a rising conservative star foreshadowed the career of ideological nastiness to come. But relishing the outing of gay students... and engaging in dirty tricks to obtain those names—well, that speaks not to ideology, but character."
He makes disgusting comments on social media.
Following the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012, D'Souza said in a since-deleted tweet: "I am thankful this week when I remember that America is big enough and great enough to survive Grown-Up Trayvon in the White House!"
Most recently, he ridiculed survivors of the February 14th massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that claimed 17 lives, saying in a tweet: "Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs." He later apologized.
In 2014 he posted a photo of Obama with a quote, "My position in BEHEADING is that I now BE HEADING to play golf."
And in 2015, he posted a photo of the former president taking a selfie with the caption, "YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF THE GHETTO...Watch this vulgar man show his stuff, while America cowers in embarrassment."
He was accused of using "straw donors" in 2012.
In 2014, D'Souza entered a guilty plea to avoid prison time for campaign finance violations. He was accused of using what are called straw donors to give to 2012 New York Republican Senate candidate Wendy Long, a classmate from Dartmouth College, where they reportedly worked together at The Dartmouth Review. That means he reimbursed people who donated to Long's campaign.
D'Souza paid a $30,000 fine and served an eight month sentence at a community confinement center in San Diego, where he checked in between 7 and 9 p.m. every night. He told Megyn Kelly, "I think if I started the Asian-Indian gang it would have one member, that's me... It's a violent place."
When he was released on May 31, 2015, he tweeted: "HE'S BAAAACK: After eight months of overnight captivity, I am done with my confinement as of 4 am this morning!"
He claims he was targeted by the Justice Department.
In an interview on Laura Ingraham's radio program Thursday, D’Souza says the Justice Department targeted him. "What my case shows in miniature is the way that Obama and Hillary, too, have gangsterized U.S. politics," he said on the radio show.
"Because if you think back, it’s really unimaginable that, say, Jimmy Carter—he would no more dream of locking me up or targeting me than either of the Bushes would dream of doing the same to Michael Moore, or even Rosie O’Donnell. But there’s a new turn that’s come in American politics, and Trump is, I think, very well aware of it. In some ways he’s the product of it."
He added: "I'm very relieved to have my record clean in a way that fully restores my faith in America, my American dream... Something that’s hanging over you and you have the United States of America versus Dinesh D’Souza, and that is now gone."
David Donnelly, president of the nonpartisan political advocacy group Every Voice, told The New York Times that Trump's decision to pardon D’Souza has "sent a message to his friends and cronies that if you break laws to protect him or attack our democracy, he’s got your back. Contribution limits are a key bulwark against corruption in politics, and pardoning the man who knowingly violated them is in direct conflict with his pledge to drain the swamp in Washington.”
Rose is a Senior Editor at ELLE overseeing features and projects about women's issues. She is an accomplished and compassionate storyteller and editor who excels in obtaining exclusive interviews and unearthing compelling features.
