Dinesh D’Souza’s violation of federal law in 2012 was both flagrant and senseless. He knowingly tried to circumvent campaign finance law by using straw donors to make illegally large campaign contributions to a doomed, no-hope U.S. Senate candidate in New York (a personal friend of his).
Given how ridiculous and obviously illegal his acts were, and given that he knew this at the time he committed them, he was fortunate (as he has admitted he felt at the time of his sentencing) to avoid a lengthy prison sentence, something much harsher than the probation and the brief halfway-house confinement that he received. He was arrogant and thought himself above the law.
D’Souza has now done his time. But ever since his guilty plea, in which he admitted that he was “in fact guilty” and acknowledged that what he did “was wrong and something the law forbids,” D’Souza has dropped all pretense of contrition. He frequently casts himself as some kind of martyr of malicious prosecution or Obama-era political prisoner.
That in itself recommends against the pardon that President Trump has just now promised to grant him. And that’s the strongest argument against it, because I would never think his opinions and assertions, as controversial and outlandish as people on all sides of political life have found them to be, should disqualify him or anyone else from a pardon. Lack of contrition, on the other hand, is kind of a big deal when it comes to pardons. The only cases where it would clearly be appropriate are the ones where the convicted person was actually innocent. That’s not the case with D’Souza.
I will be the first to agree that campaign finance laws are generally stupid. This is amply demonstrated by the failure of the sky to fall (and the failure of corporate contributions ever to become a thing at all, by the way) since the Citizens United Supreme Court decision was handed down in 2010. And please, don’t even go pretending Democrats have been losing in the time since because of that decision, it only makes you look silly.
The idea that elections can just be bought is one of the stupidest things that is widely believed today in America. And the campaign finance laws we still have are counterproductive in ways their advocates refuse to acknowledge. For example, donor limits make lobbyists much more powerful as well situated intermediaries between politicians and dozens or hundreds of donors. Is that better or worse for the country than giving more power to genuine true believers like Tom Steyer and the Koch Brothers?
But here’s the thing: Obedience to the law is not optional. People who believe in the rule of law don’t just go breaking it without very good reasons. D’Souza broke the law without any good reason.
People in that category might still deserve a pardon, right? Yes, but in D’Souza’s case, it depends on what you think of someone who admits to a flagrant and intentional crime under oath in order to get a reduced sentence, then spends subsequent years demonstrating he isn’t sorry at all.
D’Souza makes a lot of people’s blood boil. I think they need to simmer down. It doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) matter that D’Souza has expounded or holds very controversial beliefs. I don’t think it should matter that he launched attacks on President Obama in his 2016 film that even I think are grossly unfair. We shouldn’t mix political and criminal questions at all — that’s far more dangerous than anything D’Souza has done.
I’d even say we should give D’Souza a pass (in this respect) for his juvenile public behavior in trolling survivors of the Parkland shooting.
But someone who is both guilty and not sorry is precisely the guy who doesn’t deserve a pardon. Or at least, it is not a pardon that Trump should be proud to award. It is not quite as bad as Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, but it belongs in the same category. This is the kind of pardon a president issues quietly on his way out the door, if at all.
