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Yet in 2016, D鈥橲ouza offered a pardon of sorts to Donald Trump and others who, against all evidence, spent years embracing the racist fiction that the nation鈥檚 first black president was somehow a foreign-born usurper. The shelter D鈥橲ouza provided for the birthers came a day after Trump used a his years-long journey into the depths of the conspiracy theory.

鈥淚 was never a birther,鈥� D鈥橲ouza wrote on Twitter, 鈥渂ut what's racist about asking where the son of a Kenyan foreign student visitor to America was actually born?鈥�

I was never a birther but what's racist about asking where the son of a Kenyan foreign student visitor to America was actually born?

鈥� Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza)

While D鈥橲ouza鈥檚 pardon of the birthers at the time was rhetorical, the one he received from Trump on Thursday, May 31, was not.

Trump he was using his clemency powers for D鈥橲ouza for a 2014 federal conviction of violating campaign finance law. D鈥橲ouza in a scheme to use straw donors to illegally give money to the 2012 campaign of a Republican running for U.S. Senate. D鈥橲ouza and his allies claimed Obama was using the Justice Department to go after one of the president鈥檚 critics. But the plea meant D鈥橲ouza was admitting wrongdoing. He avoided jail and was of probation.

Trump, in announcing the pardon, appeared to buy into the theory that the criminal case against D鈥橲ouza was motivated by something other than justice.

鈥淲ill be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D鈥橲ouza today,鈥� Trump . 鈥淗e was treated very unfairly by our government!鈥�

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

鈥� Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

D鈥橲ouza himself used the opportunity to claim, again, that he believed he had been unfairly targeted and that 鈥淥bama is responsible for the gangsterization of politics.鈥� D鈥橲ouza also announced he鈥檒l be this summer. What timing.

His tweet defending the birthers in 2016 was similarly true to form for D鈥橲ouza. A naturalized U.S. citizen from India, he has frequently used his role as a conservative intellectual to dismiss or excuse racism from the right. He has declared that the Democratic Party and repeatedly pointed to the party鈥檚 historical defense of slavery and Jim Crow laws to portray modern Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, as running what he describes as a

The birther movement, which was primarily a product of the far-right, contended that Obama, who was born the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, had been secretly born in Africa and therefore was ineligible to become president

Although he avoided getting sucked into the birther movement, D鈥橲ouza managed to publish his own wild theories about Obama鈥檚 African heritage to describe the former president as an 鈥渆xistential threat to America.鈥�

In a book called 鈥淭he Roots of Obama鈥檚 Rage,鈥� D鈥橲ouza focused on Obama鈥檚 father, who was mostly absent from his son鈥檚 life. The author latched onto the idea that Obama had somehow 鈥渋nherited鈥� a secret and sinister ideology from his father. That ideology went against America鈥檚 founding ideals, D鈥橲ouza claimed.

The author鈥檚 website in unreal terms: 鈥淲hat really motivates Barack Obama is an inherited rage 鈥� an often masked, but profound rage that comes from his African father; an anticolonialist rage against Western dominance, and most especially against the wealth and power of the very nation Barack Obama now leads.鈥�

In a piece in 2010, D鈥橲ouza laid out the idea that the U.S. was being run by the 鈥済host鈥� of Barack Obama Sr., or as the author described him, a 鈥減hilandering, inebriated African socialist.鈥�

But instead of readying us for the challenge, our President is trapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.

In some ways, D鈥橲ouza鈥檚 theory was even more dire than the one advanced by the birthers. For many of them, the nation鈥檚 first black president had illegally schemed his way into the Oval Office, setting up a potential constitutional crisis. For D鈥橲ouza, the Obama presidency could bring down the nation. (Spoiler alert: It didn鈥檛.)

As for the current administration, D鈥橲ouza has been adamant that Trump is no racist. In of his latest book, 鈥淭he Big Lie,鈥� D鈥橲ouza wrote about accusations of bigotry against Trump.

Before taking office, Trump spent years that his predecessor may have 鈥減ulled one of the great cons in the history of politics.鈥� He claimed to have sent investigators to Hawaii, where Obama was born, to look into the president鈥檚 birth certificate. He that an 鈥渆xtremely credible source鈥� had contacted his office to say that the birth certificate was 鈥渁 fraud.鈥�

Trump was eventually during his successful 2016 campaign that Obama was born in the U.S. However, that didn鈥檛 stop him from sympathizing with birthers. The first pardon of Trump鈥檚 presidency was for Joe Arpaio, a birther and former sheriff from Arizona, who had been convicted of criminal contempt of federal court. Arpaio used his final years in office to investigate whether Obama鈥檚 birth certificate was authentic.

None of that was mentioned in the excerpt of D鈥橲ouza鈥檚 book. Instead, D鈥橲ouza focused on other things that have been used as evidence of Trump鈥檚 bigotry. He brushed aside some of it with conclusions like, 鈥渨hat鈥檚 the big deal?鈥� and 鈥渋llegal aliens are not immigrants.鈥�

D鈥橲ouza wrote that the 鈥渟trongest鈥� evidence against Trump is that he鈥檇 been supported by white nationalists like Richard Spencer, but he said that too was no sign of bigotry.

In D鈥橲ouza鈥檚 telling, any accusation against Trump can be explained away or ignored. It鈥檚 the same grace Trump gave to D鈥橲ouza with his pardon on Thursday and the kind that neither man offered the nation鈥檚 first black president.