Dinesh D'Souza Charged With Campaign Finance Fraud

D'Souza came out with the movie "2016: Obama's America" a couple of years ago. I think I was on Twitter and someone sent the YouTube link with the exhortation, "Watch this before they take it down!" And I did. The whole thing was uploaded! And then just like that, as soon as I'd seen it, the clip was pulled. Heh. I thought it was great. William Jacobson was a little harsh in his analysis, "Legal Insurrection 2016." But D'Souza pegged Obama pretty good. Perhaps that's why he's going down now.

At NYT, "Dinesh D’Souza Is Charged With Using Straw Donors":

Dinesh D’Souza, a best-selling conservative author and filmmaker, was indicted on Thursday on charges that he used straw donors to illegally donate to a 2012 Senate campaign.

 Mr. D’Souza is an outspoken political commentator who directed “2016: Obama’s America,” a scathing anti-Obama documentary released in the final months of the president’s re-election campaign.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said that Mr. D’Souza encouraged others to give $20,000 to a Senate candidate and reimbursed them for the donations. Election law prohibits such arrangements and caps donations at $5,000 per donor to any one candidate.

The Senate candidate was not identified in the indictment. Mr. D’Souza donated to only one federal candidate in 2012, giving $5,000 to Wendy Long, a New York Republican who lost her challenge to Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a Democrat.

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

Prosecutors also charged Mr. D’Souza with causing the unidentified candidate’s campaign to unwittingly file false campaign documents. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.

It is not clear from the court documents what led investigators to Mr. D’Souza in a fund-raising case involving relatively small donations, in a race that ended in a blowout win for Ms. Gillibrand. Ms. Long raised about $785,000 in the race.

Not clear, eh.

Yeah, well, read between the lines. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula can tell you about getting on the wrong side of this administration.

More at Memeorandum. Lots more.