Rosie should be prosecuted—like I was—if she violated campaign finance law

By Dinesh D'Souza. Originally posted on FoxNews.com.

The New York Post recently reported that "Rosie O'Donnell made illegally over-sized campaign donations to at least five Democratic federal candidates, according to a Post analysis of campaign filings."

The Post story goes on to state: "The liberal comedian has regularly broken Federal Election Commission rules limiting the total any one person can give to an individual candidate at $2,700 per election. The limit applies separately to primaries, runoffs and general elections."

If the Post story is accurate, federal prosecutors have an obligation to charge O'Donnell with violating campaign finance law and to put her on trial. And if she's found guilty, my advice to the sentencing judge would be to give her a sentence including confinement and a sizable fine – just as I received for violating campaign finance law.

If I – a prominent conservative – can be labeled a criminal for donating too much to a campaign, then far-left, Trump-bashing O'Donnell should get the same treatment.

If I must endure being a lifelong felon while O'Donnell gets off scot-free, can we say that Lady Justice is truly blind?

Lots of people in every election give more than they're supposed to. In other words, campaign finance violations are extremely common. And they are almost never seriously prosecuted.

The New York Post article quoted prominent campaign finance lawyer Jan Witold Baran as saying: "Donors are rarely fined for excess contributions and then only if they are hiding the donations from the recipients."

I was an exception to the rule and that has made me particularly interested in how campaign finance violations are handled. In the 2012 case, I gave $20,000 over the limit to a single candidate – Wendy Long, a college friend of mine running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in New York.

For that I was sentenced in U.S. District Court in New York City to eight months of overnight confinement, a $30,000 fine, five years of probation and one day of community service per week for five years. I'm still on probation and still doing the community service, which doesn't expire until October 2019.

Now Rosie O'Donnell has been caught exceeding the campaign finance limit by giving more than the maximum permitted donation of $2,700 to victorious Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones in Alabama, victorious Democratic congressional candidate Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania, and to three other candidates, the Post reported.

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