Friday, January 24, 2014

Author, Filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza Facing Arrest: Targeted for Campaign Finance Violations

When I heard this story yesterday, I didn't realize Dinesh D'Souza would be arrested, but that's the story this morning.




Pull-out Quotes:
“When American citizens begin to suspect that people are being arrested for alleged minor violations because of their vocal dissent against their elected representatives or rulers, it breeds disrespect and contempt for the law and suspicion of those officials,” he told the Reporter. 
Dinesh D'Souza is accused of giving too much money to a candidate who sought to replace former New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Producer Gerald Molen tells The Hollywood Reporter the charges are politically motivated. Source: Hollywood Reporter
Investigators have built their indictment against D’Souza — a prolific, best-selling conservative author and, recently, a filmmaker — based on claims that he covertly donated $20,000 to the 2012 U.S. Senate campaign of New York Republican Wendy Long, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The indictment claims that D’Souza, 52, deceptively used straw donors to donate the funds, and misreported the source of the campaign cash.
Long lost the 2012 Senate election by a landslide margin of 44 percent. She only raised about $785,000 and never presented a remotely serious challenge to her Democratic opponent, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
D’Souza and Long have been friends for decades since they were both students at Dartmouth College in 1980s. Long, a successful attorney, is not implicated in — or even mentioned in — the indictment.
D’Souza’s 2012 documentary, “2016: Obama’s America,” strongly criticizes the president’s policies and suggests that anti-colonial rage influences his presidential decisions. In the film, D’Souza also travels to Africa to interview Obama’s half brother, George Obama (who mildly reproaches his more successful sibling).
Gerald Molen, the Academy Award-winning producer who funded D’Souza’s documentary, asserted that the charges against D’Souza are politically motivated.
“When American citizens begin to suspect that people are being arrested for alleged minor violations because of their vocal dissent against their elected representatives or rulers, it breeds disrespect and contempt for the law and suspicion of those officials,” he told the Reporter. Source: Daily Caller
It's a quick Americanism test, of the sort they should be giving to would-be citizens on the day they get naturalized: is it a good thing that someone should face fines and/or jail time for deciding to express his support of a political candidate by reimbursing people he knows for the amounts of money they donated to that candidate?
The correct answer is no...
Maximum sentence could be two years in prison.
Expressing your support for a candidate above an arbitrary legislative limit--or, even, giving some cash to friends of yours for whatever reason you want, money is fungible--is corruption of the electoral process.
That laws like this exist to slam enemies of the regime when such laws might be needed, well, that's just politics.
I reviewed D'Souza's movie, 2016 Obama's America here. Obama's brother, George was interviewed. George lives in a hut and wants no part of an EBT card. In August 2012, according to D'Souza called him with a plea for $1,000 to cover medical cost for his seriously ill son:
So I agreed to send George the money through Western Union.  He was profusely grateful.  But before I hung up I asked George, “Why are you coming to me?”  He said, “I have no one else to ask.”  Then he said something that astounded me, “Dinesh, you are like a brother to me.” Source: Dinesh D'Souze quoted by Fox News
According to the indictment, in August 2012 D'Souza directed people to contribute $20,000 to a U.S. Senate candidate's campaign. He later reimbursed those people...
D'Souza served as a policy director to President Ronald Reagan. He has been affiliated with numerous conservative think-tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation.
Doesn't this further chill your heart? It does mine. Read the indictment here.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie's Notebook 

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