Dinesh D’Souza, conservative commentator and filmmaker, wasted no time gloating about his presidential pardon on Thursday, lashing out at Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted him and was later fired by Donald Trump.
“KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career.Then he got fired & I got pardoned.” D’Souza tweeted. “Obama & his stooges tried to extinguish my American dream & destroy my faith in America.”
D’Souza was responding to a tweet by Bharara, saying that “D’Souza intentionally broke the law, voluntarily pled guilty, apologized for his conduct & the judge found no unfairness. The career prosecutors and agents did their job. Period.”
President Trump announced on Thursday that he would issue a full pardon to D’Souza, who was convicted of making illegal campaign contributions — a felony — back in 2014.
In a tweet, Trump said that D’Souza, a National Review columnist, had been treated “unfairly” over the issue.
D’Souza’s conviction stemmed from contributions given to the campaign of New York Senate candidate Wendy Long. According to an FBI summary of the case, D’Souza skirted campaign finance laws by donating to Long under multiple assumed names.
Despite the conviction — which legally prevented him from voting for Trump in 2016 — D’Souza has remained a fixture in the right-wing media through his niche, but widely popular books and documentaries. His latest book, “The Big Lie,” argues that the American left is responsible for spreading fascist ideas in the United States.
“The Democratic left has an ideology virtually identical with fascism and routinely borrows tactics of intimidation and political terror from the Nazi Brownshirts,” reads a Barnes & Noble product description of the book.
In recent months, The National Review has faced pressure to remove D’Souza from its masthead over his increasingly outlandish behavior, which has included mocking school shooting survivors.
KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) May 31, 2018
The President has the right to pardon but the facts are these: D'Souza intentionally broke the law, voluntarily pled guilty, apologized for his conduct & the judge found no unfairness. The career prosecutors and agents did their job. Period. https://t.co/bA3I8vs4QQ via @politico
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) May 31, 2018
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1002177521599860736?tfw_creator=levinejonathan&tfw_site=thewrap&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thewrap.com%2Ftrump-pardon-right-wing-commentator-dinesh-dsouza-treated-unfairly%2F