Last week, right-winger Dinesh D’Souza pleaded guilty to, essentially, campaign finance fraud – and admitted on the air to Megyn Kelly that he had, in fact, committed the acts he pleaded guilty to. Yet Kelly spent most of the five-minute segment doing her best to argue that D’Souza was more victim than lawbreaker.
As Media Matters explains:
D’Souza, who rose to right-wing media darling status after producing an anti-Barack Obama film rife with lies and outlandish claims, was indicted by federal prosecutors in January, charged with violating campaign finance laws by “arranging excessive campaign contributions to a candidate for the U.S. Senate,” and allegedly reimbursing “people who he had directed to contribute $20,000” to the unnamed candidate.
D’Souza initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, and right-wing media rushed to his aid, claiming D’Souza was targeted for prosecution because he is a critic of the Obama administration.
After D’Souza’s initial indictment, Fox host Megyn Kelly provided D’Souza a platform to push the myth that his indictment was political retribution.
On May 20th, the same day D’Souza pleaded guilty, He was back on The Kelly File. Once again, Kelly suggested (repeatedly) that he was a victim of retribution.
Kelly's first question to D'Souza set the tone:
This case is resolved for today and the Obama administration gets to call one of its top critics a convicted felon. Is this what they wanted all along?
Later she acknowledged, “There was really never any doubt that you did it. I mean, your defense in this case was not ‘I didn’t do it.’” She said the defense was that he had not “done it” with intent (presumably to defraud) “and it was selective prosecution by the govt who doesn’t go after anybody for this kind of crime except for – coincidentally – one of the president’s biggest critics but the judge didn’t allow you to bring that defense.”
“It wasn’t just you that thought this might be selective prosecution. Just so our viewers know,” Kelly later assured us. She named several people, citing lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Sen. Ted Cruz. “Is this about Dinesh D’Souza or is this about upholding campaign finance laws?” Kelly “asked.”
“Do you feel chilled at all?” Kelly also asked, thereby planting a seed that the evil Obama administration may have squelched the voice of the innocent admitted-lawbreaker, D’Souza.
Watch Kelly for the D’Souza defense below, via Media Matters:
But the fact is that he knowingly committed multiple FELONIES. According to prosecutors, they have audio testimony from his associates that he in fact intended to play out his trial like this if he was caught – to initially say “Not Guilty” and try to plead his case on Fox News, and then recant with a “Guilty” statement in court to try to get a reduced sentence. In one way, this strategy has worked. He will now only be sentenced for the single felony of giving 20K to the campaign of a GOP Senate candidate in 2012 via friends of his. (He told his friends to give her money up to the legal limit, and then reimbursed them. This is called “straw man” financing and it’s illegal for obvious reasons.)
I note that the judge in this case has chastised D’Souza in court for telling people this prosecution is somehow political retribution. And D’Souza has now admitted publicly in court that he broke the law and that he knows what he did was wrong.
This isn’t a small matter for D’Souza. He could be looking at 2 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. We’ll know in September, but making appearances like he’s been doing, proclaiming how the prosecution had no case and that sort of thing will only hurt him at that time. Frankly, I believe he’ll get a heavier fine and a year in prison. And Fox News will attack everyone it can when he goes in to serve his time.
By the way, if D’Souza is such an unimpeachably honest and courageous man, how do his supporters explain the whole mess where he had to step down as President of King’s College? You know, the situation where he was caught cheating on his wife with a married woman? (And that woman, Denise Joseph, was going to testify against him in court had he not pled out last week.) Where are the right wing pundits who screamed about Clinton’s infidelities when it comes to this material?
Let’s get on it, Fox “News” suits.
He meets all the requirements:
- rightwingnut
- Obama critic
- criminal conviction
.
Megyn, honey, if this had really been “selective prosecution” against “coincidentally – one of the president’s biggest critics,” you and your
