A
very strange political scandal that burbled out of a very obscure race looks like it'll end in jail time for the perpetrator. Conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza
has pleaded guilty to charges that he asked two associates to donate $10,000 to the Senate campaign of New York Republican Wendy Long, then illegally reimbursed them. D'Souza has also agreed not to contest any prison term between 10 and 16 months, though he won't be sentenced until Sept. 23, and it sounds like he's still hoping to avoid jail time:
His attorney, Benjamin Brafman, said in a statement immediately after the plea that he was hopeful that the judge "will recognize Mr. D'Souza to be a fundamentally honorable man who should not be imprisoned for what was an isolated instance of wrongdoing in an otherwise productive life."
Oh yeah, buddy.
What made this whole thing so bizarre, though, was that Long had absolutely no chance of defeating Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who demolished her by a 72-26 margin. So of all the elections to do something this stupid for, this was the stupidest. (Long was apparently a college bud of D'Souza's, back in his infamous Dartmouth Review days. Blech.) And in this day and age, if you want to circumvent campaign finance limits, that's why the Supreme Court invented Citizens United, so this just makes D'Souza even dumber—and that's pretty remarkable.
One thing we still don't know, though, is who dropped the dime on D'Souza. It's possible it was his estranged wife, Dixie, who rather oddly also donated to Long but wasn't named by prosecutors as one of D'Souza's straw donors. (However, Denise Joseph, the woman he left his wife for, was.) We may never find out, but if D'Souza doesn't already know himself, it looks like he'll have plenty of time to contemplate it.
