Conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, charged last week with campaign fraud, insinuated Friday in an interview that he might have been targeted because of a film he directed that was unflattering to President Barack Obama.
Fox host Sean Hannity stated outright at the beginning of the segment that the Obama administration had targeted conservatives and that D’Souza “was the latest victim to be targeted by the Obama White House.” He then asked D’Souza if he believed his indictment was linked to his criticism of the president.
D’Souza immediately noted that his film, which links the supposedly anti-colonialist views of Obama’s father to the policies of the Obama presidency, “does seem to have gotten under President Obama’s skin.”
“I went into Obama’s world and into Obama’s mind,” D’Souza said. “We advanced a thesis that here is a traumatized and messed-up guy who is haunted by the dreams of his father.”
“Whether this is a kind of payback remains to be seen.”
D’Souza has been accused of participating in a straw donation scheme to funnel money to a U.S. Senate campaign, unnamed in the indictment but reportedly that of Wendy Long, the 2012 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in New York. He was charged with one count of making more than $10,000 of contributions in the names of others and one count of causing false statements.
The interview is below.
