President Trump Grants Dinesh D’Souza a Full Pardon on Twitter

On Thursday morning, President Trump surprised his social media followers with an unexpected announcement — declaring that he will plan to pardon Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative author, pundit and filmmaker who pleaded guilty in 2014 to his illegal contributions to a United States Senate campaign.

Will be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D’Souza today. He was treated very unfairly by our government!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2018

In 2014, D’Souza was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, also known as the “Election Act.” The Election Act not only curtails the amount of contributions an electoral campaign receives from a specific donor but also restricts donors from making further contributions in the name of a third party.

According to a 2014 press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, D’Souza had attempted to direct his assistant and a woman he was romantically involved with to make contributions, on the behalf of themselves and their spouses, to the Senate campaign of Wendy Long  with the promise of reimbursing them. D’Souza later acknowledged that his actions were in direct violation of government laws during the plea proceeding.

D’Souza thanked President Trump in a celebratory tweet on Twitter, several hours after the president’s announcement, asserting that the president had restored his faith in the American dream.

Obama & his stooges tried to extinguish my American dream & destroy my faith in America. Thank you @realDonaldTrump for fully restoring both

— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) May 31, 2018

Shortly following the announcement, Preet Bharara’s, Former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, tweeted that the President’s pardon doesn’t negate the fact that D’Souza had voluntarily pled guilty.

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. https://t.co/bA3I8vs4QQ via @politico

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) May 31, 2018

D’Souza then proclaimed on Twitter that Bharara had intended “to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned.”

KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) May 31, 2018

According to CNN, President Trump is currently considering pardoning Martha Stewart as well as commuting the sentence of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. Both Stewart and Blagojevich had former appeared in President Trump’s NBC reality series “The Apprentice.”