Ted Cruz is positively gleeful over Trump's pardon of conservative provocateur Dinesh D'Souza

President Trump announced Thursday he will grant a presidential pardon to Dinesh D'Souza, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is very excited.

Cruz has long been a vocal D'Souza supporter. In 2016, D'Souza's wedding ceremony was conducted by the senator's father, and when D'Souza was indicted for campaign finance violations in 2014, Cruz argued in an interview on CBS the prosecution was originated by the Obama administration as punishment for D'Souza's critical documentary, 2016: Obama's America.

"Let me tell you something that deeply concerns me: It's the abuse of power from this administration," Cruz told host Bob Schieffer. "We've seen multiple filmmakers prosecuted and the government's gone after them," he continued, including "Dinesh D'Souza, who did a very big movie criticizing the president, [and who] is now being prosecuted by this administration. Can you imagine the reaction if the Bush administration had gone and prosecuted Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, and Sean Penn?"

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz also suggested D'Souza's case "smacks of selective prosecution." D'Souza ultimately pleaded guilty to charges that he made $20,000 in illegal contributions to a New York Senate candidate.