Dinesh D’Souza has been indicted by a federal grand jury for being incredibly stupid.
Politicker (“Dinesh D’Souza Indicted for Campaign Finance Fraud“):
Dinesh D’Souza, a controversial political commentator, author and former president of King’s College, was indicted today by a grand jury for alleged campaign finance fraud, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office announced this evening.
According to the office, Mr. D’Souza, 52, is charged “with violating the federal campaign finance laws by making illegal contributions to a United States Senate campaign in the names of others and causing false statements to be made to the Federal Election Commission in connection with those contributions.”
According to a complaint, Mr. D’Souza contributed $20,000 to a New York Senate candidate’s campaign—five times the legal limit—by using straw donors, whom he later reimbursed.
FEC campaign finance records show Mr. D’Souza made two $2,500 contributions to long-shot Republican New York U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long in March 2012—the maximum allowed. Ms. Long was handily defeated in the general election by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand. Ms. D’Souza’s wife at the time, Dixie D’Souza, also gave $5,000 that March, records show. The indictment says the candidate in question was unaware of Mr. D’Souza’s allegedly illicit activities.
“As we have long said, this office and the F.B.I. take a zero-tolerance approach to corruption of the electoral process. If, as alleged, the defendant directed others to make contributions to a Senate campaign and reimbursed them, that is a serious violation of federal campaign finance laws,” Mr. Bharara said.
Mr. D’Souza is a well-known conservative commentator anId best-selling author who was forced to step down as president of the Christian King’s College in October of 2012 after reports surfaced that he had checked into a hotel with a woman he introduced as his fiancée, even though he was married to another woman, according to reports at the time. He most recently drew fire when he called President Barack Obama a “grown-up Trayvon” on Twitter.
D’Souza is just a very few years older than me and I was a big fan of his going back a quarter century or more ago, when he was a precocious rising star among the conservative commentariat. His arguments, alas, grew stale over the years, both because he seemed not to evolve beyond his views as a just-out-of-Dartmouth wunderkind and because my own views have indeed evolved in light of experience and new evidence.
Regardless, though, this is a saddening turn of events. Between contemptible commentary on Twitter for a grown ass man who should know better, his disgraceful treatment of a woman he pledged to honor until death did them part, and the most ill-advised political crime since Watergate, D’Souza has become a pathetic figure.
