Trump Announces Full Pardon For Dinesh D'Souza

President Trump said on Thursday that he would issue a full pardon to the conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza, who was convicted of making an illegal campaign contribution in 2014.

Trump tweeted that D'Souza was treated "very unfairly" by the government.

"Today, President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Grant of Clemency (Full Pardon) to Dinesh DSouza, an accomplished author, lecturer, and scholar," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. "Mr. DSouza was, in the Presidents opinion, a victim of selective prosecution for violations of campaign finance laws. Mr. DSouza accepted responsibility for his actions, and also completed community service by teaching English to citizens and immigrants seeking citizenship. In light of these facts, the President has determined that Mr. DSouza is fully worthy of this pardon."

D'Souza pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2014 of making an illegal campaign contribution. Federal prosecutors said at the time that D'Souza made a $10,000 campaign contribution to the New York Senate campaign of Wendy Long in 2012, $5,000 on behalf of himself and $5,000 on behalf of his wife. In August 2012, D'Souza asked others to make contributions totaling $20,000 to Long and later reimbursed them. D'Souza also admitted that he knew what he was doing was illegal, authorities said at the time.

While Trump said that D'Souza was treated very unfairly by the government, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman denied D'Souza's pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment for selective prosecution, which authorities referenced when announcing his sentence. Berman referred to that ruling at D'Souza's sentencing, saying, "the defendant’s claim of selective prosecution, legally speaking, is ‘all hat, no cattle.’"

Trump has used his pardon power in the past to pardon former Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio who was convicted of contempt of court in 2017. Arpaio was overwhelmingly voted out of office in 2016 and he once compared his tent city prison to a "concentration camp." In April, Trump pardoned I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. Libby was convicted in 2007 of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice following the 2003 leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, according to The Associated Press.

Earlier this month, Trump posthumously pardoned former heavyweight champion boxer Jack Johnson, an African-American who was convicted by an all-white jury in 1913 in a case that came to symbolize racial injustice.

This report will be updated.

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