We Apparently Have Ted Cruz to Thank for Trump Pardoning Dinesh D'Souza

Senator Ted Cruz, whose higher political ambitions were dashed by Donald Trump in 2016, is apparently happy to work with the man who once called his wife ugly if it means helping out his own horrible friends.

After the White House announced on Thursday that Trump would pardon Dinesh D’Souza—the conservative commenter, unreformed racist, and peddler of conspiratorial home videos—the Daily Caller reported that Cruz played a substantial role in making his buddy’s felony conviction for illegal campaign donations go away.

From the site (emphasis added):

D’Souza noted that he and his wife had dinner with Cruz approximately a month ago. At the dinner, the senator made clear he would push for a pardon during his conversations with President Donald Trump. D’Souza said he then received a call in recent days from Cruz, who told him Trump was very receptive to the pardon and that action could be coming imminently.

D’Souza took care to note that he did not push for a pardon or join any petitions circulating online because he thought it would be “unseemly” and because he was not a “Trumpster” during the Republican presidential primary campaign. He noted that Cruz was not the only person who pushed Trump for pardon and that other members of the president’s inner circle had done so.

“I did not feel entitled to a pardon” after Trump’s election, he said, adding that “my relief and elation is part of that.”

Cruz tweeted jubilantly about the news on Thursday:

Just to recap, here’s an incomplete accounting of D’Souza’s more despicable acts. He has:

• Mocked the students who survived a school shooting in Parkland, Florida
• Written to defend anti-black racism as “rational discrimination” based on “accurate group generalizations”
• Alleged the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was a “staged event”
• Started a false conspiracy theory that Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter, was an “anti-Trump guy”
• Spread conspiracy theories about Roy Moore’s signature in the yearbook of one of his accusers being forged
• Spread racist conspiracy theories about DACA recipients
• Stolen a photo from a veteran’s funeral to spread hate about NFL players’ protests against police brutality
• Alleged that Adolf Hitler was “NOT anti-gay”
• Used transphobia to defend Trump walking in on Miss Teen USA contestants while they were changing
• Once tweeted a photo of Obama holding a selfie stick with the caption “YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF THE GHETTO…”
• Shared a meme calling Obama a gay Muslim
• Called Obama “grown-up Trayvon”
• Called Rosa Parks an “overrated Democrat”

This is the company Cruz keeps and is apparently willing to stick his neck out for.

As dipshits like D’Souza are welcomed back into polite society, people like Alice Marie Johnson—who was sentenced to life without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense—continue suffering in prison. I guess when Jared Kushner talks about criminal justice reform, this is what he means.