Dinesh D'Guilty

Noted conservative scold, budding propaganda filmmaker and human embodiment of "Well, actually..." nonsense Dinesh D'Souza, has plead guilty to campaign finance violations in order to head off his trial expected to start today in a Manhattan court.

D'Souza, known for his biting criticism of President Barack Obama, pleaded guilty to one criminal count of making illegal contributions in the names of others. A second count concerning the making of false statements is expected to be dismissed once he is sentenced.

The plea came four months after Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara charged D'Souza with using "straw donors" to give funds in 2012 to Republican Wendy Long's U.S. Senate campaign in New York. Long, who met D'Souza while they were students in the 1980s, lost to Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand.

"I knew that causing a campaign contribution to be made in the name of another was wrong and something the law forbids," D'Souza, 53, told U.S. District Judge Berman on Tuesday. "I deeply regret my conduct."

Prosecutors said D'Souza asked two friends and their spouses to contribute $10,000 each to Long's campaign and then reimbursed them. At the time, campaign finance regulations limited individual donations to a maximum of $5,000 during an election cycle.

One of the friends was Denise Joseph, who was engaged to D'Souza while he was still married to another woman. D'Souza resigned as president of King's College, a small Christian school in New York City, after the media revealed his relationship with Joseph in 2012.

This guy's a real champ.  Also, nice of him to cop a plea and avoid the truly nastier parts of our criminal justice system, but you can do that when you've got as much money as D'Souza does (enough to bankroll a 2012 anti-Obama campaign propaganda film and stuff).

It's not stopping GOP senators from coming to his defense, so you know he was never going to spend a day in jail.  But he is guilty, and it's hard to make the case that he's somehow being persecuted when he's pleading guilty to a crime.  Kinda funny if you think about it, as these senators insisted that Obama was personally going after D'Souza as part of a Nixonian "enemies list" and he of course was innocent of all wrongdoing.

Just because you publicly hate and want to destroy the President doesn't mean you can break the law, kids.  In the end, Republicans are really bad judges of character.