Dinesh D’Souza Admits That 2020 Election Conspiracy Movie ‘2000 Mules’ Relied On “Inaccurate Information”

Dinesh D’Souza issued an apology to man he claimed to be a ballot harvester in his election conspiracy film 2000 Mules.

The 2022 documentary claimed to show widespread voter fraud that cost Donald Trump key swing states in the 2020 election. Even though a number of its claims were debunked by Factcheck.org, it grossed almost $1.5 million at the box office.

In a statement posted on his website, D’Souza also acknowledged that the movie falsely linked geolocation data to drop box surveillance footage, something that was the “premise of the film.”

D’Souza wrote, “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.”

His statement included an apology to Mark Andrews, who sued D’Souza over the use of his blurred image in the film and a book as a suspected “ballot harvester.”

“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,” D’Souza wrote.

Earlier this year, Salem Media Group pulled the movie from its platforms and issued its own apology to Andrews. Salem, which also was named as a defendant in the lawsuit, also published the 2000 Mules book and said that there would be no future distribution of that title. After a settlement, Salem was dismissed from the case in June.

Trump had embraced the movie as evidence that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Another defendant in the lawsuit, True the Vote, continues to insist that the central premise of the movie “remains accurate,” but noted that it had “no editorial control” over the movie or involvement in the books. D’Souza also insisted that they “continue to have faith that True the Vote’s underlying geolocation data and analysis uncovered highly suspicious cell phone travel patterns, including a significant number of cell phone IDs that were recorded at more than ten drop box locations. While the video in the film created an incorrect inference as to Mr. Andrews, the underlying premise of the film holds true.”

When the movie was released, FactCheck.org concluded that “True the Vote attempted to corroborate its premise with surveillance video of drop boxes obtained from public sources, which the group contends provides visual proof of the conspiracy. But notably, none of the video footage used in the movie shows any individual depositing ballots at multiple drop boxes — a shortcoming D’Souza attributes to the fact that many jurisdictions did not capture surveillance video of drop boxes as required by law, or that in many cases the video was too grainy to definitively identify people.

“We are, however, shown numerous surveillance videos of people placing multiple ballots into a drop box — which the film claims is direct evidence of crime. But in at least three cases so far, Georgia investigators say the video actually shows people legally dropping off ballots for eligible voters who are immediate family members living in their home.”