--- ---  # President Trump Says He's Pardoning Dinesh D'Souza. Who's That, and What Did He Do? by [Nash Jenkins](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins May 31, 2018 2:46 PM UTC  Dinesh D'Souza arrives for the Los Angeles Premiere of "Hillary's America," at TCL Chinese 6 Theatres on July 11, 2016 in Hollywood, California. Dinesh D'Souza arrives for the Los Angeles Premiere of "Hillary's America," at TCL Chinese 6 Theatres on July 11, 2016 in Hollywood, California.Gabriel Olsen—Getty Images by [Nash Jenkins](https://time.com/author/p-nash-jenkins/) ## Nash Jenkins May 31, 2018 2:46 PM UTC President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would be issuing a “full pardon” to Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative pundit who, in Trump’s words, was “treated very unfairly by our government.” The decision sent shockwaves through the political world — D’Souza has for decades thrived as an incendiary mouthpiece for a hardline fringe faction of the American right. He was convicted in 2014 of making illegal campaign donations to a New York Republican and sentenced to five years probation, eight months in a halfway house, and a fine of $30,000. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1002177521599860736) **Who is Dinesh D’Souza?** Arguably one of the most prominent right-wing commentators in recent memory. An outspoken conservative since his undergraduate days at Dartmouth College in the early 1980s, D’Souza — born in Mumbai to an Indian Catholic family — was a onetime advisor in the Ronald Reagan White House. D’Souza eventually discarded his more classically liberal conservatism for a caustic and conspiratorial strain of rhetoric. His star in this vein rose to new heights during the Obama administration, which he cast in his political work as a diabolical anti-colonialist engine designed to cripple the United States. This was more or less the thesis of his [2012 documentary](http://ideas.time.com/2012/08/30/why-is-dinesh-dsouza-so-angry-with-obama/), _2016: Obama’s America,_ which proved immensely popular with some conservative audiences. His most recent book, 2017’s _The Big Lie,_ attempts to articulate what he calls the “Nazi roots of the American left.” D’Souza is 57 years old, married to Deborah Fancher and has one child. **What crimes did Dinesh D’Souza commit?** D’Souza was [indicted](http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/23/pundit-dinesh-dsouza-indicted-for-illegal-campaign-donations/) in 2014 for violations of campaign finance laws. Authorities said that he encouraged individuals to donate $20,000 to an unnamed political candidate — later revealed to be the New York Republican Wendy Long, who was challenging Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand for her Senate seat — which exceeded the federal campaign donation cap of $5,000\. D’Souza pled guilty in May 2014, but did not face prison time. The conservative punditocracy was swift to portray D’Souza’s indictment as an exercise in political persecution. One [Breitbart News](http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/15/the-political-persecution-of-dinesh-dsouza/) story from 2015 compared his sentencing — he spent eight months in a halfway house and was required to attend counseling in lieu of jail — to Maoism. This is not a view restricted to the fringe. On Thursday morning, after Trump announced the pardon, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas tweeted that “Dinesh was the subject of a political prosecution, brazenly targeted by the Obama administration \[because\] of his political views.” “And he’s a powerful voice for freedom, systematically dismantling the lies of the Left—which is why they hate him,” Cruz wrote. > [](https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1002181080349380608) President Trump Plans Pardon for Dinesh D'Souza. 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