(Reuters) - Dinesh D'Souza, a conservative commentator and best-selling author, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for arranging excessive campaign contributions to a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

According to an indictment made public on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, D'Souza around August 2012 reimbursed people who he had directed to contribute $20,000 to the candidate's campaign. The candidate was not named in the indictment.

Attempts to reach D'Souza and a lawyer representing him were unsuccessful.

D'Souza was charged in the indictment with one count of making illegal contributions in the names of others, and one count of causing false statements to be made.

Federal law in 2012 limited primary and general election campaign contributions to $2,500 each, for a total of $5,000, from any individual to any one candidate.

"As we have long said, this Office and the FBI take a zero tolerance approach to corruption of the electoral process," the U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, said in a statement released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Bharara is an Obama appointee.

Born in Mumbai, India, D'Souza, 52, is a former policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and has been affiliated with conservative organizations such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

He also directed a 2012 film critical of President Barack Obama, "2016: Obama's America," and has written books including "The End of Racism," "Life After Death: The Evidence" and "Obama's America: Unmaking the American Dream."

Read more:http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/2...EA0M22W20140123

Hmmmm. I guess we should be surprised he has been unscathed for so long.

UPDATE: Here’s more from The Hollywood Reporter, as tweeted by Dinesh D’Souza on Twitter, where D’Souza’s co-producer on the film says it is politically motivated, that D’Souza’s being singled out for a minor violation:

Federal authorities accuse D’Souza of donating more than is legal to the campaign of Wendy Long, who ran in 2012 for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton but lost to now-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Long, though, is not mentioned in an indictment obtained by THR on Thursday

Insiders say D’Souza has been friends with Long since they attended Dartmouth College together in the early 1980s. According to the indictment, D’Souza donated $20,000 to Long’s campaign by aggregating the money from various people and falsely reporting the source of the funds. But Gerald Molen, a co-producer of 2016, says the charge is politically motivated.

“In America, we have a long tradition of not doing what is commonly done in too many other countries — criminalizing dissent through the selective enforcement of the law,” Molen tells THR.

D’Souza first learned he was being investigated in the middle of 2013, several months after 2016 had earned $33 million at the box office and become the second most popular political documentary in U.S. history. The film included an interview with Obama’s half brother, George Obama, who was mildly critical of the president.

Molen says D’Souza is being singled out for “an alleged minor violation” in the same way the IRS reportedly targeted conservative Tea Party groups for retribution. “In light of the recent events and the way the IRS has been used to stifle dissent, this arrest should send shivers down the spines of all freedom-loving Americans,” Molen says.

http://therightscoop.com/ugh-dinesh-dsou...-federal-court/

Quote: Eglman wrote in post #4

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UPDATE: Here’s more from The Hollywood Reporter, as tweeted by Dinesh D’Souza on Twitter, where D’Souza’s co-producer on the film says it is politically motivated, that D’Souza’s being singled out for a minor violation:

Federal authorities accuse D’Souza of donating more than is legal to the campaign of Wendy Long, who ran in 2012 for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton but lost to now-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Long, though, is not mentioned in an indictment obtained by THR on Thursday

Insiders say D’Souza has been friends with Long since they attended Dartmouth College together in the early 1980s. According to the indictment, D’Souza donated $20,000 to Long’s campaign by aggregating the money from various people and falsely reporting the source of the funds. But Gerald Molen, a co-producer of 2016, says the charge is politically motivated.

“In America, we have a long tradition of not doing what is commonly done in too many other countries — criminalizing dissent through the selective enforcement of the law,” Molen tells THR.

D’Souza first learned he was being investigated in the middle of 2013, several months after 2016 had earned $33 million at the box office and become the second most popular political documentary in U.S. history. The film included an interview with Obama’s half brother, George Obama, who was mildly critical of the president.

Molen says D’Souza is being singled out for “an alleged minor violation” in the same way the IRS reportedly targeted conservative Tea Party groups for retribution. “In light of the recent events and the way the IRS has been used to stifle dissent, this arrest should send shivers down the spines of all freedom-loving Americans,” Molen says.

http://therightscoop.com/ugh-dinesh-dsou...-federal-court/

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I'm drawing a blank, Rev. What is the other one besides Fuddy?

Right out of the Marxist playbook regarding silencing your political opposition:

1. Mock them

2. Control the media to suppress all opposing viewpoints

3. Impose financial hardship through loss of jobs, higher taxes for select groups, etc.

4. Imprison through trumped up charges, or minor charges selectively applied

5. Eliminate all opposition

Looks like we've entered stage 4. Wonder when stage 5 begins?

Quote: conservgramma wrote in post #8

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Right out of the Marxist playbook regarding silencing your political opposition:

1. Mock them

2. Control the media to suppress all opposing viewpoints

3. Impose financial hardship through loss of jobs, higher taxes for select groups, etc.

4. Imprison through trumped up charges, or minor charges selectively applied

5. Eliminate all opposition

Looks like we've entered stage 4. Wonder when stage 5 begins?

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Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #9

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Quote: conservgramma wrote in post #8

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Right out of the Marxist playbook regarding silencing your political opposition:

1. Mock them

2. Control the media to suppress all opposing viewpoints

3. Impose financial hardship through loss of jobs, higher taxes for select groups, etc.

4. Imprison through trumped up charges, or minor charges selectively applied

5. Eliminate all opposition

Looks like we've entered stage 4. Wonder when stage 5 begins?

---

The issue here isn't that the Marxist bastards are pulling this, we all knew they would. The issue is that the GOP is doing NOTHING to fight back against these abuses because the leadership is wholly complicit.

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Cuomo tells Conservatives they are not welcome in NY, de Blasio publically agrees. Schumer call for IRS harassment of Tea Party, D'Souza is indicted, O'Keefe is investigated...what an amazing series of coincidences.

Zitat

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It would've been too obvious if D'Souza had met with a sudden, mysterious life ending experience after all that has happened recently, so they decided to come at him this way.

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Yeah, it would have been obvious - but who would make an issue of it? Fox News - maybe. But the King has decreed Fox News to be illegitimate, so whatever appears on that channel can be safely ignored.

TmZ, anyone? What's Justin Beiber up to, anyway?

Straw-donor cases have been brought against prominnent individuals from time to time. For example, in 2011, a prominent Los Angeles attorney, Pierce O’Donnell, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of making $20,000 in donations to the presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards and reimbursing straw donors.