Recently, President Trump asserted on Twitter that he believes his pardon powers are so absolute that he could pardon himself if he so chose. Predictably, the left-wing media, and Trump’s tone-deaf opponents, failed to appreciate the nuance of his message.
The tweet read: “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never-ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!”
Okay, his tone is over the top. He’s an over the top personality. It’s part of how he gets things done. But the real reason Trump sent out this, admittedly reflexive, message was in part a response to the Left’s dyspepsia over Trump’s pardon of conservative thinker Dinesh D’Souza.
As an aside, we’ve noticed by now that the Left freaks out no matter what Trump does- even when it benefits minorities. So we don’t have to be terribly concerned about their tantrums.
But this is a good time to review the D’Souza case. It’s a particularly outstanding example of the hypocrisy, viciousness, and willingness of Democrats to use the legal system as a weapon against their political enemies.
Dinesh D’Souza is a legal immigrant from Mumbai, India. He came here at a relatively young age, became educated, and quickly realized that the vast opportunities afforded to him here would not be possible in the nation of his birth. D’Souza went on to write many best-selling non-fiction books which prove that Democrats were the majority slaveholders in the pre-civil-war South, that there was no “great shift” of the parties and that racism, slavery, and slander are core values of the Democrat platform.
These credentials earned him a place well within the targeting reticule of Democrats. But it wasn’t until he released his film, Obama’s America, that leftists went after him in earnest.
Obama’s America was released in 2012 and took a speculative look at what a second Obama term in office would look like. The film was based on Obama’s proven track record of aiding the enemies of America, weakening our military, and using unending extra-judicial drone warfare to kill indiscriminately abroad. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet you should.
The film drew the ire of President Obama himself, who railed against it on his own website. Soon, D’Souza found himself under prosecution for a crime that no one has ever been prosecuted or punished for since it was drafted into law.
The former Attorney General Michael Mukasey himself called the prosecution unjustified. He said, “In the normal course, that case would have been prosecuted with the outcome being a fine.” He went on to say that the judge who presided over that case has a history of being involved in cases that amount to political hit jobs.
So what was his crime? He was charged and convicted of campaign finance fraud after he donated $20,000 to Wendy Long, a New York Republican. D’Souza pleaded guilty to charges of campaign finance fraud. He made the donation in 2012 and was indicted in 2014 for using a straw donor, which is someone who makes contributions anonymously.
His donation only became a crime because he gave the money to a friend who has access to Long. He never intended to make his donation anonymous by using a straw donor. D’Sousa’s attorney called it, “an act of misguided friendship.”
D’Souza paid a $30,000 fine, spent eight months in prison and was given 5 years of probation.
Where this gets interesting is the more recent case of Rosie O’Donnell. She committed precisely the same crime, but clearly did it intentionally. Her numerous donations to New York politicians were sent from phony addresses using aliases- straw donors. Her donations exceeded the legal limit and were made using illegal anonymous means.
When she came under pressure, she said, “I don’t look to see who I can donate most to … I just donate assuming they do not accept what is over the limit. “If 2700 is the cut off – [candidates] should refund the money. I don’t look to see who I can donate most to … I just donate assuming they do not accept what is over the limit.”
O’Donnell has yet to face anything in the way of meaningful legal trouble for her illegal donations. D’Souza, on the other hand- whose faith in America has been restored- might reasonably say, ‘By the grace of Trump, I go.’
~ American Liberty Report
