Conservative film-maker Dinesh D’Souza has issued a rare apology for his controversial documentary 2,000 Mules, a cornerstone of post-2020 election fraud conspiracy theories, but a prominent organization in the election denialism ecosystem is standing behind the film’s false claims.
The film alleged a massive voter fraud scheme involving individuals supposedly stuffing ballot drop boxes with illegal votes. Central to these claims was cell phone geolocation data provided by True the Vote, a Texas-based nonprofit that has become a prominent actor in the election denial ecosystem.
True the Vote on Monday maintained the film’s central premise “remains accurate”. The group insists its geolocation data proves suspicious voting patterns, despite repeated debunking by election experts, including the former attorney general William Barr.
In a statement from last week, D’Souza acknowledges the video was mischaracterized.
“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,” D’Souza’s said in the statement. “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.”
D’Souza’s public admission focuses on Mark Andrews, a Georgia voter featured in the film at a ballot drop box. Despite blurring Andrews’s face, the documentary suggested he was part of a coordinated voter fraud operation.
D’Souza said he was apologizing to Andrews “because it is the right thing to do”, and “not under the terms of a settlement agreement or other duress”. Andrews sued D’Souza, True the Vote, and the film’s distributor, Salem Media Group, for defamation in 2022 over the film. Salem settled the lawsuit earlier this year, agreed to stop distributing the film, and apologized to Andrews. The lawsuit against D’Souza in federal court in Georgia is ongoing.
The cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, a Department of Homeland Security agency which has dominion over elections in the United States, declined a request for comment.
The concession from D’Souza marks the latest example of a prominent vector of misinformation about the 2020 election acknowledging their claims were false. Amid a separate defamation lawsuit, the Gateway Pundit, the influential far-right news outlet, acknowledged earlier this year that it had falsely accused Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Atlanta election workers, of fraud.
OAN, another network that spread false claims about the election, also apologized to the two election workers. Freeman and Moss won a $148m judgment in a libel suit against Rudy Giuliani last year and are moving to seize his assets.
Founded by Catherine Engelbrecht, True the Vote has transformed from a fringe organization to a key player in challenging election results. The group claims to protect elections through technological surveillance, but has repeatedly failed to substantiate its expansive fraud allegations.
It’s not the first time the organization’s credibility has been undermined in recent memory. An app developed by True the Vote contained a security flaw that exposed user email addresses ahead of the US election, and the group is facing an IRS complaint for potentially illegal political coordination with the Georgia Republican party in 2020.
The documentary’s impact extended far beyond the fringes of the internet. Months after the film premiered at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, armed individuals were documented stalking voters at drop boxes in Arizona, an illustration of how such conspiracy theories can translate into real-world intimidation.
Salem Media Group – which originally distributed the film – has already ceased its circulation and issued its own apology to Andrews. Lawyers for Andrews declined to comment.
