(Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP)
Pro-Trump author and conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza publicly admitted Monday that his roundly debunked film “2000 Mules” included inaccurate evidence to back up its claims of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.
D’Souza released a statement on his website and specifically apologized to Mark Andrews, an Atlanta-area man who sued after the film wrongly identified him as a so-called mule repeatedly dropping off ballots.
“As those who have seen the film or read the book know, “2000 Mules” was based on cell phone geolocation data collected and reviewed by True the Vote. An analysis of this data revealed highly suspicious patterns of certain cell phones, which were recorded in the location of ten or more dropboxes. This data was the premise of the film,” began D’Souza’s statement, adding:
During the production of this film, as a supplement to the geolocation data, True the Vote provided my team with ballot drop box surveillance footage that had been obtained through open records requests. We were assured that the surveillance videos had been linked to geolocation cell phone data, such that each video depicted an individual who had made at least 10 visits to drop boxes. Indeed, it is clear from the interviews within the film itself that True the Vote was correlating the videos to geolocation data.
We recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data.
The core of D’Souza’s conspiracy theory, which has been widely debunked by law enforcement and the media, asserts that Democrats hired “mules” in the 2020 election to collect and repeatedly drop off ballots at the same dropbox over and over. In May, Salem Media Group, which published and distributed the film, also apologized to Andrews and retracted the film from distribution.
Upon its release, “2000 Mules” was wildly popular in MAGA-world and was even screened by Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
“I know that the film and my book create the impression that these individuals were mules that had been identified as suspected ballot harvesters based on their geotracked cell phone data,” continued D’Souza in his statement, adding:
While all of these individuals’ images were blurred and unrecognizable, one of the individuals has since come forward publicly and has initiated a lawsuit over the use of his blurred image in the film and the book. I owe this individual, Mark Andrews, an apology. I now understand that the surveillance videos used in the film were characterized on the basis of inaccurate information provided to me and my team. If I had known then that the videos were not linked to geolocation data, I would have clarified this and produced and edited the film differently.
Andrews settled with Salem Media Group for a “significant [confidential] amount” back in May, according to court documents.
D’Souza, who was pardoned by Trump in 2018 for campaign finance law violations, continues to be a prominent figure in pro-MAGA media and releases his latest documentary in September titled, “Vindicating Trump.”
