The president of the United States announced today that he plans to grant a full pardon to conservative commentator Dinesh D‘Souza. Here’s the official pronouncement:

Will be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D’Souza today. He was treated very unfairly by our government!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2018

So how was Dinesh D‘Souza treated unfairly by our government? Washington Post columnist Paul Waldman counts the ways:

There are some campaign finance violations that are trivial, or that might be explained away as oversights. This was not one of them. D’Souza knew very well he was breaking the law, and took steps to conceal his actions. He devised and carried out a scheme to violate election laws. Specifically, once he and his wife had given the legal limit in contributions to a friend of D‘Souza’s who was running for Senate, he wanted to give more money, but he was prohibited by law from doing so. So he instructed his assistant and his mistress (yes, his mistress) to also give the legal limit, and he then reimbursed them for their contributions, concealing the true source of the money. That is not an oversight; it was a willful fraud.

Waldman, increasingly my favorite, also lists the awful, stupid things D‘Souza has said over the years. He also talks big picture: the message Trump’s recent pardons (Joe Arpaio, Scotter Libby) are sending to Trump's base and to colleagues caught in Robert Mueller's net.

Remember when the Republican party pretended to care about accountability? They don't pretend anymore.