FRAUD: Dinesh D'Souza
- Yasmin Sudarsanam
- Sep 22, 2024
- 4 min read
In another one of his series of presidential pardons, in 2018 then-President Donald Trump pardoned a political commentator, conspiracy theorist, filmmaker, and author who has made several successful films and books, including a film condemning President Barack Obama and several New York Times best sellers. This is the story of Dinesh D’Souza.
On April 25, 1961, Dinesh D’Souza was born in Bombay to Catholic Parents. After attending high school in India, D’Souza moved to the United States as an exchange student. He attended Dartmouth College, and during his time as an undergraduate student he wrote for The Dartmouth Review. However, his publications came under fire, particularly an article he wrote which publicly outed homosexual members of the Dartmouth Gay Straight Alliance as well as his self-proclaimed “light-hearted interview” with a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan and a piece ridiculing affirmative action in higher education. After graduating, D’Souza began editing The Prospect, a monthly journal financed by several Princeton University alumni. He also faced criticism in this role for mocking Princeton’s affirmative action policies at the time.
D’Souza served as a policy analyst and advisor under President Ronald Reagan. He became a naturalized citizen in 1991 and renounced Indian citizenship since India’s nationality law did not allow for dual citizenship. He then continued his writing career and began to foray into directing and filmmaking. In 1995, D’Souza published a controversial book titled The End of Racism, in which he defended Southern slave owners and called for the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Critics of this piece accused him of completely ignoring the complexity behind the civil rights movement and the Black experience in America. His next piece, What’s So Great About America, published in 2002, argued that colonialism lifted third world countries up to Western civilization while diminishing the trauma that colonialism inflicted upon thousands of nations that continues to impact the economies and societies of developing countries to this day. The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and its Responsibility for 9/11, released in 2007, blamed the American cultural and political left for the anger that prompted the September 11th attacks.
D’Souza served as President of the King’s College in New York City until he resigned following accusations of adultery. Then, in 2012, he produced 2016: Obama’s America, a conspiracist political film which was soon joined by America: Imagine the World Without Her (2014), Hillary's America (2016), Death of a Nation (2018), Trump Card (2020) and 2000 Mules (2022). D’Souza identifies as a neoconservative, defining conservatism as conserving the principles of the American Revolution and finding a blend of classical liberalism and morals. He continues to promote conspiracy theories like the claim that Obama was not born in the United States and that the Clintons had a series of hidden crimes.
Throughout writing career, while his pieces did appeal to more extreme conservative audiences, D’Souza faced criticism from people of a variety of political allegiances for his tendency to manipulate and cherry pick facts to fit his narrative and to make the biggest profit. He was denounced by liberals and conservatives alike, including the Conservative Political Action Conference which removed him from its list of speakers, for mocking victims of the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Unsurprisingly, D’Souza also mocked and denied the true perilous nature of the January 6th insurrection.
In 2012, D’Souza contributed $10,000 to Wendy Long’s Senate campaign. Long was a good friend of his from Dartmouth, and he sought to help her achieve a Senate seat, although she went on to lose the position in a landslide to Democrat Kirsten E. Gillibrand. In addition to his own donation, made in the name of him and his wife, D’Souza directed two other individuals to donate a total of $20,000 to Long on behalf of themselves and their spouses. D’Souza reimbursed them in cash soon after. At the time, the Election Act limited campaign contributions from an individual to a candidate to $5,000, and by reimbursing the two individuals who also made contributions, D’Souza was knowingly and intentionally violating this act and compromising the integrity of the election. In May of 2014, D’Souza pled guilty to making illegal contributions in the name of others, and for his crimes, a judge sentenced him to five years of probation, a $30,000 fine, eight months spent at a half-way house in San Diego, and community service.
Even after his conviction and sentencing, D’Souza’s conspiracy theories did not slow down. In Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party, he suggested that his conviction was a targeted attack in return for his film criticizing the Obama administration. During Trump’s succession of political pardons, he also pardoned D’Souza in 2018. Two years later, D’Souza produced 2000 Mules, a film and book, after the 2020 election. In the piece, he claimed that President Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump through ballot fraud. Former-President Trump supported the film wholeheartedly, even screening it at his Florida property, Mar-a-Lago. However, the film did not escape public scrutiny. One individual named in the film, Mark Andrews, went on to sue the company and D’Souza for defamation after being accused of ballot stuffing, and eventually, both the film and book were removed from distribution by the executive producer and publisher after they faced heated criticism for the blatant spread of misinformation.
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