Once again, President Trump does what I consider to be the right thing. If I had pardon power, I would have pardoned d’Souza, whose conviction (for something ordinarily not prosecuted at all) seemed a clear case of vindictive political pursuit by the Obama administration.

Andrew C. McCarthy agrees:

The selective, politicized prosecution of conservative author, producer, and activist Dinesh D’Souza was an exercise in gratuitous severity. President Trump’s pardon of D’Souza, announced today, is the remedy the Framers had in mind.

D’Souza was (and is) a strident anti-Obama critic. He committed a trivial campaign-finance violation. This is not to excuse the conduct; it is to reaffirm the principle that the punishment should fit the crime, and to observe that the conduct at issue is typically not treated as a crime at all. Routinely, misconduct of the kind engaged in by D’Souza is settled by payment of an administrative fine to the Federal Election Commission. In stark contrast, the Obama Justice Department not only selectively prosecuted D’Souza; prosecutors turned the case into a multiple felony indictment.

And Martha Stewart’s conviction, although not political, is another case in which I believe a pardon is very much in order, too. No doubt Trump’s motive is to undo some of the work of his nemesis, James Comey, who was in charge of that case. But it’s also the right thing to do.

And by the way, Stewart was a Hillary supporter. Not only that, she had lots to say during the campaign about what an awful person Trump is (they had a history of altercations, too):

In 2006, Stewart and Trump had a falling out over low ratings from her show, “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart,” which he created and was an executive producer for. Trump has previously said he believes the spin-off dragged down his own show.

Two years after the incident, Stewart said Trump’s actions were “unforgivable.”

“There is so much to know and so much to learn and so much diplomacy and kindness and introspection that goes with that kind of job,” Stewart said. “And it does not exist in the world of Donald Trump.”

If Trump were to pardon her, I wonder if she’d find it in her heart to revise that evaluation.

That CNN article I linked to earlier in this post ends with the following sentence:

Last week, Trump also pardoned the deceased boxer Jack Johnson.

Neither the writer nor CNN saw fit to clue the reader in on who Jack Johnson might be or why that pardon was issued—not even by offering the bare minimum, a link to something about Johnson. Perhaps the omission is because this one doesn’t fit the usual Trump-is-a-foul-racist narrative:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday issued a posthumous pardon to boxer Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champion, who was jailed a century ago due to his relationship with a white woman.

“I believe Jack Johnson is a worthy person to receive a pardon, to correct a wrong in our history,” Trump said.

In a case that came to symbolize racial injustice, Johnson was arrested in 1912 with Lucille Cameron, who later became his wife, for violating the Mann Act. The law was passed two years earlier and made it a crime to take a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.

James Earl Jones first became a star portraying a character based on Johnson in the play “The Great White Hope,” which I saw in the original production.

Speaking of theater, this post has started an earworm for me, which I’ll now share with you. The genesis of the earworm was the phrase “So pardon us, so pardon us…”—although this is referring to a different sort of pardon. I love, love, love “The Mikado” and know just about every word, having learned it in childhood from records:

[ADDENDUM: Let me add that Trump also spoke of the possibility of commuting Blagojevich’s sentence, which is not the same as a pardon but would get him out of prison. Blago’s sentence was 14 years, which I consider to have been excessive. Trump said:

“There was a lot of bravado. … plenty of other politicians have said a lot worse. And it doesn’t, he shouldn’t have been put in jail. And he’s a Democrat. He’s not my party. But I thought that he was treated unfairly.”

The president may have been referring to what the then-governor was picked up saying on secret federal wiretaps about his authority to appoint someone to Obama’s seat.

“I’ve got this thing and it’s f—ing golden,” Blagojevich said in the conversation with another state official on tapes that were played in court. “And I’m just not giving it up for f—ing nothing.”

Trump also suggested he was more interested in “curtailment” of Blagojevich’s sentence than in granting a full pardon.

Fascinating that Blagojevich is indeed a Democrat.

Another aspect of the D’Souza pardon is that Ted Cruz was instrumental in pressing for it.]