BASH: Let’s — let’s turn, Preet, to the pardon that the president exercised this week, another controversial case.
He pardoned cont — excuse me — conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza after his guilty plea for an illegal campaign contribution in 2014.
You were the prosecutor on that case. Now, the president says he pardoned D’Souza because he was treated — quote — “very unfairly.”
What is your reaction to that?
BHARARA: Well, I was a U.S. attorney at the time.
There are career prosecutors, career agents who brought this garden- variety case in connection with using straw donors illegally to contribute to a political campaign.
It’s not the crime of the century. We had about, you know, 1,000 more important cases that we prosecuted at the time. But Dinesh D’Souza was — intentionally committed a crime, which was proven beyond all doubt. He admitted his guilt in a guilty plea before the court. He said he regretted the action.
His lawyer, by the way, who is no slouch, Ben Brafman, who has a lot on his plate these days and is about as aggressive a lawyer as there is, literally said in court, “We have no defense, Your Honor.”
So, the questions about whether or not he was treated unfairly was litigated in the court. The judge, very well-respected, Judge Berman, listened to the arguments about that, said it was all hat, no cattle. There was no evidence of that whatsoever.
It’s the kind of — look, we prosecuted more people for that precise crime who are Democrats than Republicans. Most people had never heard of Dinesh D’Souza, even though he’s making a lot of noise now. He seems to think that the world revolves around him when he’s making all these comments.