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Dinesh D'Souza Pleads Guilty to Making Illegal Campaign Contribution

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  • Dinesh D'Souza Pleads Guilty to Making Illegal Campaign Contribution



    Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza has struck a deal with prosecutors over charges he used straw donors to give $15,000 more to a U.S. Senate campaign than is allowed under campaign finance laws, authorities said Tuesday.

    D’Souza was to have started his trial this week in New York, but instead, he pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of making illegal campaign contributions, which carries a maximum two-year sentence. He’s expected to be sentenced in about four months.

    [....]

    D’Souza was indicted in January for asking some friends to donate money to the campaign of Wendy Long, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully against Democratic incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in New York in 2012, and allegedly promising to reimburse them for their donations.

    [....]

    “It’s a remarkably selective prosecution considering Obama raised millions of dollars under similar circumstances and donors merely faced civil fines while D’Souza is charged with felony violation of federal law,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told The Hollywood Reporter in February.
    When both Ted Cruz and Alan Dershowitz (sp?) are saying that something is a selective (and likely political) prosecution, then you know something's going on. Sadly, with this administration's track record, it's entirely too likely that this is indeed a political prosecution. Such are the far-reaching effects of corrupting and politicizing other aspects of the federal government that are supposed to be non-political.


    That having been said, it would appear, at least from the reporting, that D'Souza did indeed do what he was primarily charged with: illegally funneling campaign contributions to Long. Selective prosecution does not somehow excuse the crime: if I get busted doing 90 MPH in a 70 MPH zone on the interstate, I am not somehow excused from that ticket just because the cop didn't stop the guy in the next lane doing 100 MPH. I still did what I have been charged with.

    It does make Thomas' stance on campaign finance limits a few weeks back all the more clear and correct, though. With all of the efforts to somehow quash big campaign contributions, to somehow stop people from allegedly "buying elections," all that has happened is that we have created bubbles under the wallpaper. You can give $5000 this way, but if you give $5001 then you've broken the law, unless you route it through a Byzantine system of different handling groups, at which point you can give all sorts of other money completely legally. But all of this assiduously avoids the far more basic question of why it's anyone else's business what someone does with their own money. If I had $20,000 to throw around and I decide that I want to use that money to help bankroll a poor Black kid in the ghetto to get him to college, then I'm a wonderful and noble person. If I give that $20,000 March of Dimes or the Salvation Army or the Red Cross, then I'm generous and kind. If I give that money to Andy Stephenson, then I'm a life-saver fighting for truth to power or whatever. If I put $20,000 in the jar at the convenience market to help little Timmy overcome leukemia or some other such dread disease, then I will be celebrated in the media.

    If I give that $20,000 to support a candidate whose views I believe reflect my own, though, it's straight to the slam for me.

    There's something very pernicious and wrong about such a system.
    It's been ten years since that lonely day I left you
    In the morning rain, smoking gun in hand
    Ten lonely years but how my heart, it still remembers
    Pray for me, momma, I'm a gypsy now

  • #2
    This is such an arbitrary process. So this is illegal but campaign bundling is perfectly legal.
    "Faith is nothing but a firm assent of the mind : which, if it be regulated, as is our duty, cannot be afforded to anything but upon good reason, and so cannot be opposite to it."
    -John Locke

    "It's all been melded together into one giant, authoritarian, leftist scream."
    -Newman

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by scott View Post
      This is such an arbitrary process. So this is illegal but campaign bundling is perfectly legal.
      Yep. Hence why Thomas was right: when you start trying to create these arbitrary limits, you ultimately just open up Pandora's box.
      It's been ten years since that lonely day I left you
      In the morning rain, smoking gun in hand
      Ten lonely years but how my heart, it still remembers
      Pray for me, momma, I'm a gypsy now

      Comment


      • #4
        Is anyone surprised? The only thing that would surprise me would be for him to not receive the maximum two-year sentence.
        May we raise children who love the unloved things - the dandelion, the worm, the spiderlings.
        Children who sense the rose needs the thorn and run into rainswept days the same way they turn towards the sun...
        And when they're grown and someone has to speak for those who have no voice,
        may they draw upon that wilder bond, those days of tending tender things and be the one.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Michele View Post
          Is anyone surprised? The only thing that would surprise me would be for him to not receive the maximum two-year sentence.
          Deport him.
          The year's at the spring
          And day's at the morn;
          Morning's at seven;
          The hill-side's dew-pearled;
          The lark's on the wing;
          The snail's on the thorn:
          God's in his heaven—
          All's right with the world!

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Novaheart View Post
            Deport him.
            He's a U.S. citizen.
            It's been ten years since that lonely day I left you
            In the morning rain, smoking gun in hand
            Ten lonely years but how my heart, it still remembers
            Pray for me, momma, I'm a gypsy now

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Adam View Post
              He's a U.S. citizen.
              In that case, financially ruin him and sic the IRS dogs on him.
              May we raise children who love the unloved things - the dandelion, the worm, the spiderlings.
              Children who sense the rose needs the thorn and run into rainswept days the same way they turn towards the sun...
              And when they're grown and someone has to speak for those who have no voice,
              may they draw upon that wilder bond, those days of tending tender things and be the one.

              Comment


              • #8
                It's difficult for me to believe that the same thing doesn't happen in 'bundling' schemes. D’Souza's real crime is being on the wrong side and being small-time. I'm sure monster donors and their networks are identical but somehow untouchable. Still, he's guilty and will be sentenced.

                The impact of monster donors and unions along with other apparently legal funneling operations is damaging the operation of democracy now.

                I don't know what the answer is at this point. I think it would at least help if we collapsed the election period to 2 months. No ads, fundraising, BBQs, or whatever outside that period. Outside groups running ads or creating material to distribute that named a candidate or specifically referred to candidate's opinion or record would have to get it done in that 8 week period. I also think all material in that period has to identify the party of the candidate being mentioned.

                I got a lot of material last time with no party affiliation. After looking crap up many times, I found that if there was no party identified, it was the Democratic Party.
                "Alexa, slaughter the fatted calf."

                Comment

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