Conservative Firebrand Indicted On Election Fraud Charge

Conservative Firebrand Indicted On Election Fraud Charge

Dinesh D’Souza, a best-selling conservative author of the “Obama is a secret Kenyan socialist” variety, was indicted for election fraud by federal authorities Thursday.

According to the indictment, D’Souza directed acquaintances to donate to the campaign of an unnamed Senate candidate and then reimbursed the donors. Capital New Yorkreports that Wendy Long’s 2012 Senate run is the campaign in question. Long, who lost to Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand in a landslide election, is an old college friend of D’Souza. Both attended Dartmouth College in the early 1980s, where they worked for an infamous right-wing student newspaper, TheDartmouth Review.

In addition to reimbursing donors, the indictment also indicates D’Souza knowingly and unlawfully made contributions to the campaign “in the name of others.” D’Souza is set to be arraigned in Manhattan Federal District Court on Friday. Through his lawyer, he’s maintained his innocence.

“Mr. D’Souza did not act with any corrupt or criminal intent whatsoever,” said Benjamin Brafman, D’Souza’s attorney. “He and the candidate have been friends since their college days, and at most, this was an act of misguided friendship by D’Souza.”

The indictment seems to cap D’Souza’s rather rapid slide from prominence in conservative circles. It also adds another controversy to his storied history as a public figure.

After graduating from Dartmouth, D’Souza took a job in the Reagan administration as a policy advisor. He also later worked as a scholar for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. and served on the board of the Catholic League. His career as an author and filmmaker further launched him into the public eye — his 2012 documentary, 2016: Obama’s America, was a hit with conservative critics of the president, earning a shocking $33 million at the box office.

But scandal was never far from D’Souza.

On the first day of Yom Kippur in 1992, for example, The Dartmouth Reviewpublished a quote from Adolf Hitler on the paper’s masthead. “By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord’s work,” the passage read. D’Souza, who was a trustee of the Review at the time, did not apologize for the paper’s anti-Semitism. Rather, he publicly claimed it was sabotage by members of Dartmouth’s staff, who’d tried previously to censor the paper.

In 2012, fresh off the success of 2016: Obama’s America, D’Souza resigned as president of King’s College, an evangelical college in New York, after it was exposed that he was engaged to a 29-year-old woman while still married to his wife. Ironically, the evangelical publication World published the initial report of D’Souza’s marital infidelity. His high-profile position was apparently a point of contention for some of the more vocal members of the religious right.

And now, to almost certainly further diminish D’Souza’s stature in the public discourse, he’ll be hauled in front of a judge in federal court to hear the charges being brought against him, marking the meteoric fall to a 25-year career on the fringe.

Photo via Wikimedia

Start your day with National Memo Newsletter

Know first.

The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning

How A Stuttering President Confronts A Right-Wing Bully

Donald Trump mocks Joe Biden’s stutter,” the headlines blare, and I am confronted (again) with (more) proof that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee hates people like me.

Keep reading...Show less
Trump at Trump Tower

Former President Donald Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan

NEW YORK, March 25 (Reuters) - Donald Trump faces a Monday deadline to post a bond to cover a $454 million civil fraud judgment or face the risk of New York state seizing some of his marquee properties.Trump, seeking to regain the presidency this year, must either pay the money out of his own pocket or post a bond while he appeals Justice Arthur Engoron's February 16 judgment against him for manipulating his net worth and his family real estate company's property values to dupe lenders and insurers.

Keep reading...Show less
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}