Prosecutor wants jail time for Dinesh D'Souza

American Thinker ^ | 09/11/2014 | Rick Moran

[SeekAndFind]

Saying that the defendant had offered no proof that he felt remorse for his crime, a New York prosecutor is asking a judge to send Dinesh D'Souza to jail for violating campaign finance laws.

D'Souza pled guilty to making straw donations to the 2012 United States Senate campaign of Wendy E. Long. He asked two friends and their wives to donate  the maximum to Long's campaign - $20,000 in all - and then reimbursed them, thus exceeding the $5,000 limit on donations per election cycle.

Considering all the chicanery conducted by the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012, where millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions came in, the idea of sending D'Souza to jail for a $20,000 violation of the law is absurd and laughable.

New York Times:

In seeking a prison term for Mr. D’Souza, 53, the government disputed his lawyer’s contention in recent court papers that his client had “unequivocally accepted responsibility” for his crime.

“The defendant pled guilty at the last possible moment before trial began,” prosecutors wrote, “not because he actually accepted responsibility for his conduct, but because he was in fact guilty and he had no defense or excuse for his criminal conduct.”

“The defendant’s crime is serious and strikes at the heart of our federal election system,” prosecutors added.

The government had said Mr. D’Souza arranged in August 2012 to have two friends each donate $10,000 on behalf of themselves and their spouses to Ms. Long’s campaign, with the understanding that Mr. D’Souza would reimburse their contributions. That resulted in a contribution of $20,000, exceeding the $5,000 individual limit for the 2012 election cycle.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Or a 747. It’s all good.

[sphinx]

Straw donors are illegal, fairly common, and rarely prosecuted. The prosecution of D'Souza was highly selective and suspect for that reason. That said, what he did was clearly illegal, and an occasional exemplary case is perhaps to be expected. But the demand for jail time is a huge escalation, especially with regard to an offense that is rarely charged.

The proper response now is for D'Souza's lawyers, aided by the campaign finance experts on our side, is to immediately submit lengthy lists of democrat donors reasonably suspected of the same thing, and ask if prosecutors really want to start throwing people in jail for this.

[The Great RJ]

If D’Souza deserves jail time for what he did Lois Lerner and the head of the VA in Phoenix should get capital punishment.

[amihow]

Because MSM will push it in the news of course. Turn off moderates leftists from truth of his message. Know your enemies.

[Georgia Girl 2]

When you make a couple of movies showing the emperor has no clothes you better expect jailtime. Its a police state after all.

[Chickensoup]

so WHO is the prosecutor? Is this HOLDER?

[informavoracious]

He should have shot dead his girlfriend through the bathroom door.

[PoloSec]

Conservatives are passionate about preserving our Free Republic, we must always be aware the bar is set much higher for us, and we must always remember we set the bar.

The communists see our passion as a weakness and seek every opportunity to exploit it, we now see one of our own served up as an example of how communists deal with those who would defy them, we need to keep our eyes on the bar, there is only misery for slipping under it, not just for the one; but for us all, very tempting to do so as we see the enemy get away with lawlessness continually and openly parade such in our face.

Maintaining freedom means constant vigilance to keeping the moral code that is embedded in our spirit to remain free, at least until we decide to endeavor into revolution, that goes beyond enduring the political into the shedding of blood at which time by necessity the bar, the code, must be removed, shelved until victory is achieved, war really is hell.

[Cyman]

Sorry but your very well thought out and well written response can be extrapolated to every argument that endlessly spews out of the mouths of Rev's Sharp and Jackson for any and all criminal activity committed by the black community.

It is wrong when they promulgate such nonsense in defense of black’s actions and it is especially abhorrent when applied in Mr D’souza’s case.

[LucianOfSamasota]

Agreed!

Nonetheless, I would not make an illegal campaign contribution.

Not even if I thought I could get away with it.

A man leading the charge against government corruption should be less prone than I to do so.

[nathanbedford]

My reply pointed out the following truisms:

1) Dinesh D'Souza is guilty; end of that discussion.

2) Selective prosecution is unpersuasive in an ordinary criminal case; the mitigating feature, if any, of selective prosecution should be applied to sentencing.

3) laws concerning campaign contributions are not laws against inherent evil, at least as defined by the Supreme Court of the United States which upheld in some instances the payment of money to affect elections as a constitutionally protected free speech.

4) if there is a politically motivated selective prosecution in a political case is more persuasive than a defense of selective prosecution in a case involving a crime, for example, of violence.

5) selective prosecution in a political case approaches a moral equivalence of the wrongdoing originally complained of which is not true in a case of ordinary crime.

6) Dinesh D'Souza is a first-time offender and should be treated as such and in that context one notes that Democrats have received only probation for similar offenses.

I would be grateful if you would point out which of these propositions you find disagreeable. I am not clear how this defense supports the concededly wrongheaded arguments of Jackson and Sharpton nor, if it does, how it then can be distinguished from the arguments advanced by the patriots who fought the American Revolution.