Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative Indian-American pundit and a trenchant critic of President Barack Obama, has been indicted on charges of violating federal campaign finance laws by using straw donors to funnel money to a Senate candidate.
Author and filmmaker D’Souza produced a scathing anti-Obama documentary, titled 2016: Obama’s America, and released it during the closing stages of Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.
The 52-year-old D’Souza, who also wrote a book titled The Roots of Obama’s Rage, has been charged with illegal donations of $20,000 to the Senate candidate, who has not been identified in the indictment but is reckoned to be New York Republican Wendy long who lost overwhelmingly to Democrat Kirsten E Gillibrand in the 2012 elections.
US Attorney Preet Bharara, announcing the grand jury charges on Thursday, spoke of his office’s “zero tolerance approach” to corruption of the electoral process, noting: “If, as alleged, the defendant directed others to make contributions to a Senate campaign and reimbursed them, that is a serious violation of federal campaign finance laws.”
D’Souza was due to formally arraigned in the New York federal court of District Judge Richard M. Berman on Friday. He has been charged with one count of causing $20,000 in illegal campaign contributions to the unidentified Senate candidate, which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. US election law prohibits such arrangements and caps donations at $5,000 per donor to any one candidate.