Two prominent Indian Americans, representing two different political ideologies - Preet Bharara and Dinesh D’Souza - engaged in a bitter war of words on Twitter today after Mr. D’Souza was pardoned by President Donald Trump for violating federal campaign laws.
In 2014, Mr. D’Souza had pleaded guilty in federal court for using a straw donor to making illegal campaign contribution a 2012 Senate campaign. He was thereafter sentenced to eight months in a halfway house near his home in San Diego and five years of probation.
It all started with Mr. Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who in a tweet was highly critical of the presidential pardon to Mr. D’Souza.
“The president has the right to pardon but the facts are these: D’Souza intentionally broke the law, voluntarily pled guilty, apologised for his conduct & the judge found no unfairness. The career prosecutors and agents did their job. Period,” Mr. Bharara tweeted.
Mr. D’Souza also slammed Mr. Bharara in a series of tweets after he was pardoned and alleged that one Indian American had tried to destroy the career of another Indian American.
“Bharara & his goons bludgeoned me into the plea by threatening to add a second redundant charge carrying a prison term of FIVE YEARS,” Mr. D’Souza said in a tweet.
“Karma is a b**** dept: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned,” Mr. D’Souza said.
Mr. D’Souza, who has written several books, thanked Mr. Trump for the pardon. “My heartfelt thanks to those who prayed for me, supported me & reached out on social media to President Trump to pardon me,” he said.
“Obama and his stooges tried to extinguish my American dream & destroy my faith in America. Thank you @realDonaldTrump for fully restoring both,” Mr. D’Souza said.
Mr. D’Souza slammed Bharara in an radio interview too. “With regard to Preet Bharara, I see him with along with Eric Holder as part of this Obama team of goons that was unleashed to get me in retaliation for the movie I made about Obama,” he said.
“I think Bharara’s was that he would prove by getting a fellow Indian he would endear himself to the Obama team. Preet Bharara got fired by Trump and I got pardoned, so that’s how it all ended up,” Mr. D’Souza said.
Mumbai-born Mr. D’Souza, 57, is author of several New York Times bestsellers. In 2012 his movie ‘2016: Obama’s America’s’ which was based on his anti-Obama book became the second-highest-grossing political documentary film produced in the U.S.
Mr. D’Souza, who comes from a Roman Catholic family from Goa, had launched a campaign against both Mr. Obama and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
He is also a big supporter of Mr. Trump. In a new video, released this week, Mr. D’Souza ripped apart “the false narrative that Democrats are the ‘anti-fascist’ party”. His latest book ‘Big Lie’ is based on this.
Mr. D’Souza is the author of nearly 20 books and producer of four movies, with the latest one being ‘Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party’.
