Why Trump Pardoned Dinesh D'Souza
By Jeffrey Toobin
May 31, 2018
... He has no ideology except self-interest. He doesn’t play politics; he plays the angles ...
... the relevant point about Stewart is that her prosecution was James Comey’s most high-profile accomplishment during his tenure as United States Attorney, in Manhattan. Pardoning Stewart is a way of diminishing Comey, who is among Trump’s most reviled enemies. Since Stewart has long been out of prison, the pardon will have little practical significance for her, but that’s not the point. Punishing Comey is. (Springing Blago, the former Illinois governor who was convicted on public corruption charges, in 2011, and is serving a fourteen-year sentence, offers similar value for Trump. The governor was prosecuted by the former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who also brought a perjury case against Scooter Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, whom Trump pardoned earlier this year. And Fitzgerald today is one of the lawyers representing Comey ...
... D’Souza’s pardon .. seems .. little more than a straight payoff to the right-wing base, which has been the focus of Trump’s attentions and affections throughout his Presidency ... D’Souza chose to plead guilty rather than go to trial. He was sentenced to eight months in a halfway house and paid a fine. Still, Trump’s pardon allows D’Souza to wallow in his martyrdom at the hands of Obama’s prosecutors — the former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whom Trump fired, brought the case — and the President will reap the credit from D’Souza’s admirers.
... Who are Trump’s real business partners? How and where have his business ventures been financed? And what, of course, would we learn if we could see his tax returns? These pardon cases show that the President serves his friends and punishes his enemies—and we need to know, more than ever, who is who.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-trump-pardoned-dinesh-dsouzaand-may-pardon-martha-stewart
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