Trump pardons conservative author
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Thursday pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative author, commentator and filmmaker, and said he was strongly considering commuting the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat.
Flexing his clemency power as he and his team face multiple criminal investigations of their own, Trump also said that he was thinking about the case of Martha Stewart, the lifestyle mogul who spent five months in prison for lying to investigators about the timing of a stock sale.
The president was focusing on cases where he argued that the justice system had unfairly treated celebrity figures, all of whom were convicted of crimes that in some ways mirrored charges that have been made or mentioned in connection with allies of Trump’s in recent weeks, including campaign finance violations and lying to investigators.
All three have connections, if sometimes distant, to Trump, either through political allies or his time in the private sector. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas pushed for the pardon for D’Souza. Blagojevich appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice,” Trump’s reality show, and Stewart hosted an “Apprentice” spinoff show.
Moreover, all three of the cases were tied to prosecutors who have become nemeses of the president. D’Souza was prosecuted by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in New York who was fired by Trump last year and has been one of his fiercest critics. Stewart was prosecuted by James Comey, the FBI director who was fired by Trump last year and has engaged in a running war of words ever since.
Blagojevich was prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald, a close friend and colleague of Comey. Trump previously pardoned I. Lewis Libby Jr., a top aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was also prosecuted by Fitzgerald.
D’Souza made a direct link to Bharara’s conflict with Trump after the pardon. “KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career,” he wrote on Twitter. “Then he got fired & I got pardoned.”
The pardon for D’Souza, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to making illegal campaign contributions, represented a victory for one of the president’s most vocal bases of support, the conservative media. D’Souza has argued that he was singled out for prosecution because of his conservative politics.
The pardon for D’Souza was the fifth that Trump has issued. Last year, the president pardoned Joe Arpaio, the former Arizona sheriff, a move that was also popular among Trump’s conservative base, especially the anti-immigrant contingent.