A conservative author and filmmaker recently pardoned by President Donald Trump is under fire after retweeting a Twitter post with the hashtag #burnthejews.
Dinesh D’Souza pleaded guilty to using a “straw donor” in order to make an illegal campaign contribution to a U.S. Senate race in 2012. In 2014, D’Souza entered his plea and was eventually sentenced to five years probation, eight months in a halfway house and a $30,000 fine. On May 31 of this year, President Trump issued a pardon, saying D’Souza “was treated very unfairly by our government.”
Fast forward one month. D’Souza is currently promoting a new film which compares Trump to Abraham Lincoln. In service of that self-promotion, D’Souza retweeted a Twitter post by user @RedManDan84. Twitter subsequently suspended that account, but not before multiple users made screenshots of D’Souza’s retweet:
Twitter user Ryan Adams–who does not appear to be the country singer of the same name–also noted the D’Souza tweet by retweeting the original screenshot captured by Twitter user @smoobydog:
Adams’ post went semi-viral. After that, Twitter more or less collectively leapt into D’Souza’s mentions–accusing him of harboring anti-semitic beliefs.
D’Souza claims it was all a big misunderstanding and that he simply didn’t see the hashtag. He wrote, “I did not see the hashtag. Just trying to share the trailer on social media.”
Comedian Kathy Griffin responded to D’Souza’s explanation with a Nazi joke:
Other Twitter users were similarly unconvinced:
As the controversy threatened to die down, however, another Twitter user noticed that D’Souza retweeted another controversial hashtag right after the #burnthejews fiasco occurred. This time, the hashtag read: #bringbackslavery.
[image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]