Earlier this morning, Donald Trump fired up the Twitter machine to issue another policy pronouncement — non-ironically proving exactly why a judge ruled that he can’t constitutionally block people on Twitter — informing the world that he’d be pardoning convicted criminal and lowest common denominator Dinesh D’Souza.

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

D’Souza’s work bringing together conspiracy theories and easily debunked historical misstatements that get lapped up by a cross-section of Americans eager to wear their intellectual laziness on their sleeve, rivals only his propensity for committing election fraud — the charge he ultimately would plead to in 2014.

Can a man really be treated unfairly if he pleads it? Unfortunately, most Americans would think the answer is no. If he admitted his crime, just how unfair could it be? Especially when a convict then avoids jail time when the judge ignored the advice of prosecutors. But this is the dangerous assumption that enables prosecutorial misconduct all over the country. Pleading out isn’t a confession for many criminal defendants, it’s a survival strategy. When prosecutors jam a defendant up against a lengthy prison sentence, deserved or not, defendants are usually left with no alternative but to accede to a prosecutor’s demands and cop to a lesser charge. That this can look like fairness is a tragedy.

That said, absolutely none of this happened to D’Souza. Unlike some cash-strapped kid brought in on trumped up possession charges, D’Souza had the wherewithal to fight his case. He had Ben Brafman representing him! D’Souza was caught red-handed committing a serious election law crime and outside of Alan Dershowitz’s early auditions for the right-wing pundit circuit, no one out there seriously thought D’Souza got a bum rap. Most cases like these get pleaded out and… this was ultimately no exception. If there’s any tragedy worse than America’s acquiescence to dispensing justice by prosecutorial whim, it’s dishonoring that tragedy by pretending brazen millionaire election fraudsters are the real victims here.

Of note, D’Souza was convicted of campaign finance violations which just so happens to be a crime Michael Cohen could soon be convicted of. It’s certainly a coincidence that Trump would broadcast to the public that someone with a campaign law violation could get pardoned if they remain loyal to Trump’s cause.

It’s actually got me wondering what Jack Johnson did to earn a pardon.

Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.