Bernard Kerik was in prison during last year's CPAC. | John Shinkle/POLITICO CPAC welcomes convicted, accused

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — During last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Bernard Kerik was in federal prison, serving time for tax fraud and lying to federal investigators. At this year’s conference, the former New York police commissioner received a warm welcome from CPAC attendees as he spoke about sentencing reform, and Rick Perry even thanked him for his service.

A half-hour earlier, the crowd of conservatives cheered on Oliver North, the Marine at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal, as he attacked President Barack Obama for drawing “phony red lines with a pink crayon.”


Dinesh D’Souza, the filmmaker facing criminal charges over allegedly funneling donations to a Senate campaign, took the stage an hour later to preview his newest movie.

( PHOTOS: CPAC 2014)

CPAC is different things to different conservatives: A chance for 2016 presidential candidates to preen before GOP activists, for example, and a turn on the national stage for ambitious state-level pols eyeing higher office.

It’s also become a refuge for Republicans who’ve run into trouble with the law.

Kerik, who was released from prison in May after pleading guilty in 2009 to eight felonies, appeared with Perry, the governor of Texas, and anti-tax icon Grover Norquist on a panel about reforming the criminal justice system.

“A true American hero who was targeted by the left when President Bush nominated him for Secretary of Homeland Security,” is how the American Conservative Union’s Pat Nolan introduced the disgraced Kerik, who became famous as New York’s police chief on Sept. 11, 2001.

( Also on POLITICO: At CPAC, Santorum disses CPAC)

“Sadly, this great man, this hero, was sent to prison and spent three years in custody and has the perspective now of that view, from behind bars, different from when he was running a very effective prison,” added Nolan, who oversees the ACU Foundation’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform.

Kerik was anything but contrite as he argued for reforming mandatory minimum sentences.

“We are putting people in prison for regulatory and administrative issues,” he said. “They don’t need prison.”

“When I went to federal prison, I was housed with men that I believe did really bad things,” he added, wearing a tailored suit. “Today in America, in a country that has the greatest Constitution in the world, I fought for it, I defended it, I nearly died for it more times than I count … the system is broken, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, and it’s got to get fixed.”

( POLITICO’s full coverage of CPAC)

After Kerik wrapped up, Perry spoke up: “Thank you for giving back so much to this country.”

D’Souza, who directed a provocative documentary about Obama in 2012, received a standing ovation when he appeared on stage in an open-collared pink shirt to debut the trailer for his new movie, which comes out this summer. The premise: “What would the world look like if America did not exist?”

During a nine-minute speech, D’Souza decried what he called “a moral attack on capitalism.” He did not mention that he was in a federal courthouse in New York on Tuesday for a hearing related to his January indictment. He allegedly reimbursed associates who cut checks to a friend running for Senate.

He has proclaimed his innocence and suggested that he is being targeted.

“I’m feeling as good as I can,” D’Souza told POLITICO after his speech at CPAC. “It’s not something to take lately, so I’m taking it with due seriousness, but I’m a good compartmentalizer so it doesn’t fluster me. You can see I’m not like crushed by it. It’s something I have to deal with, but I’m forging ahead with my work and I’m really happy with the way the film is coming.”

Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney’s onetime chief of staff, was scheduled to sit on an afternoon panel, seven years and one day after a jury convicted him of perjury, obstructing justice and making false statements to the FBI. But he was a no-show. The topic of the discussion: “What are the big alternative ideas conservatives should present as Obama’s term ends?”

Libby was sentenced to a 30-month prison term. Bush commuted the jail time but declined to pardon him, despite aggressive lobbying by Cheney. Libby is now at the Hudson Institute think tank. A conference spokeswoman did not respond to a question about why he was not there.

Also spotted wandering the halls of CPAC was Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who was convicted in 2010 on a money-laundering charge. But the conviction was overturned on appeal in September, and it was just announced this week that he will begin writing a weekly column for The Washington Times.

Al Cardenas, who chairs the organization that puts on CPAC, defended all the invitations, noting that every speaker – regardless of his past – has something substantive to add. On Kerik, he said that there has been a major evolution in the conservative view on law-and-order issues.

“We now have 15 or 20 years of the harsher penalties and the consequences of that,” he said. “There’s a growing realization that we’re using up a lot of taxpayer money with negative consequences for our society, so isn’t it time to take a second look at our corrections system?”

North was convicted of three felonies in 1989 related to the arms-for-hostages scandal during Ronald Reagan’s administration, but the convictions were eventually dismissed on appeal.

A Fox News commentator, he has been a fixture of these conservative confabs since his failed run for Senate from Virginia in 1994.

North was introduced Friday by Rob Maness, a tea party-backed Senate candidate in Louisiana who remembers watching the feeding frenzy around North as a very junior airman in the Air Force.

“He’s always been a guy that’s stood up for principles and had to make some calls that were tough calls for him personally and professionally,” Maness said afterward. “But he believes in doing the right thing, so it was pretty easy to deliver a good intro for him.”