Dinesh Joseph D'Souza is an Indian-American right-wing political commentator, author, filmmaker, and conspiracy theorist.
60 Facts About Dinesh D'Souza
2.
Dinesh D'Souza has written over a dozen books, several of them New York Times best-sellers.
3.
In 2012, D'Souza released the documentary film 2016: Obama's America, an anti-Barack Obama polemic based on his 2010 book The Roots of Obama's Rage; it earned $33 million, making it the highest-grossing conservative documentary of all time and one of the highest-grossing documentaries of any kind.
4.
Dinesh D'Souza has since released five other documentary films: America: Imagine the World Without Her, Hillary's America, Death of a Nation, Trump Card and 2000 Mules.
5.
Dinesh D'Souza was a policy adviser in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and has been affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution.
6.
In 2012, Dinesh D'Souza contributed $10,000 to the Senate campaign of Wendy Long on behalf of himself and his wife, agreeing in writing to attribute that contribution as $5,000 from his wife and $5,000 from him.
7.
Dinesh D'Souza directed two other people to give Long a total of $20,000 in addition, which he agreed to reimburse, and later did.
8.
Two years later, Dinesh D'Souza pleaded guilty in federal court to one felony charge of using a "straw donor" to make the illegal campaign contribution.
9.
Dinesh D'Souza was sentenced to eight months in a halfway house near his home in San Diego, five years' probation, and a $30,000 fine.
10.
In 2018, Dinesh D'Souza was issued a pardon by President Donald Trump.
11.
Dinesh D'Souza attended the Jesuit St Stanislaus High School in Bombay.
12.
Dinesh D'Souza graduated in 1976 and completed his 11th and 12th years at Sydenham College, in Bombay.
13.
In 1978, Dinesh D'Souza became a foreign exchange student and traveled to the United States under the Rotary Youth Exchange and attended the local public school in Patagonia, Arizona.
14.
Dinesh D'Souza went on to matriculate at Dartmouth College, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1983 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
15.
Dinesh D'Souza faced criticism during his time at The Review for authoring an article publicly outing homosexual members of the school's Gay Straight Alliance student organization.
16.
Dinesh D'Souza oversaw The Review's publication of "a light-hearted interview" with a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan over a staged photograph of a Black person hanged from a tree; and a piece mocking affirmative action in higher education, written from the point of view of a Black student and phrased in Ebonics.
17.
Between 1987 and 1988, Dinesh D'Souza was a policy adviser in the administration of President Ronald Reagan.
18.
Dinesh D'Souza has been affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
19.
In 1995 Dinesh D'Souza published The End of Racism, in which he claimed that exaggerated claims of racism are holding back progress among African Americans in the US.
20.
Some observers, such as Baltimore Sun writer Gregory Kane noted that Dinesh D'Souza's book bore many similarities to Taylor's 1992 work Paved with Good Intentions, despite Dinesh D'Souza accusing Taylor of racism.
21.
Many right-wing critics, such as Lawrence Auster, believed that Dinesh D'Souza was attacking Francis and others to protect himself from accusations of racism.
22.
Dinesh D'Souza argues that Muslims do not hate America because of its freedom and democracy, but because they perceive America to be imposing its moral depravity on the world.
23.
All in all, Dinesh D'Souza's article reads like a bad conspiracy theory.
24.
Dinesh D'Souza wrote the book America: Imagine the World Without Her on which his 2014 film of the same name is based.
25.
Dinesh D'Souza disputed the explanation, saying the book had only been out a few weeks and had surged to No 1 on Amazon.
26.
In July 2017, Dinesh D'Souza published The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left.
27.
Dinesh D'Souza wrote and co-directed the documentary-style polemical film 2016: Obama's America.
28.
Dinesh D'Souza suggested that early influences on Obama affected the decisions he made as president.
29.
Later, when Dinesh D'Souza was indicted for violating election law, Dinesh D'Souza and his co-producers alleged that he was selectively prosecuted, and that the indictment was politically motivated retribution for the success of the film.
30.
In March 2013, Dinesh D'Souza announced work on a documentary-style film titled America: Imagine the World Without Her for release in 2014.
31.
On July 25,2016, Dinesh D'Souza released the documentary film Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.
32.
Dinesh D'Souza further argues that the political left attempt to falsely push claims of racism, white supremacy, and fascism onto the political right for political gain.
33.
In May 2022, Dinesh D'Souza released 2000 Mules, a film that falsely alleges Democrat-aligned individuals were paid to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin during the 2020 presidential election.
34.
The Dispatch, a conservative online magazine, found that "The film's ballot harvesting theory is full of holes", and mentioned that "Dinesh D'Souza has a history of promoting false and misleading claims".
35.
Dinesh D'Souza has appeared on numerous national television networks and programs.
36.
Six days after the September 11,2001, attacks, Dinesh D'Souza appeared on Politically Incorrect hosted by Bill Maher.
37.
Dinesh D'Souza said liberals' "penchant for interference" had a decided effect in convincing the Carter administration to withdraw support from the Shah, which brought on Muslim fundamentalists' control of the Iranian government.
38.
Dinesh D'Souza said that the distorted representation of American culture on television is one source of resentment of the United States by Muslims worldwide.
39.
Dinesh D'Souza believes that traditional Muslims are not too different from traditional Jews and Christians in America.
40.
In late February 2017, students at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, stole more than 200 flyers advertising Dinesh D'Souza's planned appearance at the university the first week of March.
41.
Twin brothers Manfred and Jonah Wendt, co-founders of the student conservative group Tigers for Liberty, had passed around 600 notices of Dinesh D'Souza's visit to campus.
42.
Dinesh D'Souza has been critical of feminism, and Bruce Goldner, in a review of Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education, noted that he "has a tendency to characterize feminists as castrating misanthropes".
43.
Dinesh D'Souza attended the evangelical church Calvary Chapel from 2000 to about 2010.
44.
Dinesh D'Souza elaborated on his views in the 2007 book he authored, What's so Great about Christianity.
45.
Dinesh D'Souza has promoted several conspiracy theories, such as the false claim that Obama was not born in the United States and the conspiracy theory that the Clintons had murdered people.
46.
Dinesh D'Souza has promoted false claims about businessman and philanthropist George Soros, including that Soros had collaborated with the Nazis as a youth, and that he has sponsored Antifa, a left-wing anti-fascist movement.
47.
In November 2013, Dinesh D'Souza received backlash for referring to Obama as "Grown-Up Trayvon" in a tweet.
48.
In February 2015, Dinesh D'Souza wrote: "You can take the boy out of the ghetto" in a tweet criticizing Obama for using a selfie stick.
49.
Dinesh D'Souza later tweeted that civil rights activist Rosa Parks' contributions to the civil rights movement were "absurdly inflated" and described her as an "overrated Democrat".
50.
In February 2018, Dinesh D'Souza was criticized for a series of tweets which mocked the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
51.
Dinesh D'Souza accused the survivors of "politically-orchestrated grief" and said that their grief "[struck him] as phony and inauthentic".
52.
Dinesh D'Souza's comments were condemned by both liberal and conservative commentators.
53.
Dinesh D'Souza was denounced by the Conservative Political Action Conference, which removed him from its roster of speakers and stated: "his comments are indefensible".
54.
In February 2021, after the January 6 United States Capitol attack took place, Dinesh D'Souza suggested that the rioters were little more than "a bunch of rowdy people walking through a hallway".
55.
On January 23,2014, Dinesh D'Souza was charged with making $20,000 in illegal campaign contributions to the New York Senate campaign of Wendy Long and causing false statements to be made to the Federal Election Commission.
56.
On May 20,2014, Dinesh D'Souza pleaded guilty to one felony count of making illegal contributions in the names of others.
57.
Dinesh D'Souza dated fellow conservatives Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter prior to meeting Dixie Brubaker while working at the White House.
58.
The couple lived together in California until Dinesh D'Souza moved to New York as president of The King's College in 2010.
59.
Dinesh D'Souza maintained a residence near San Diego, California, where his wife and daughter remained.
60.
On March 19,2016, Dinesh D'Souza married Deborah Fancher, a conservative political activist and mother of two.