Dinesh D'Souza apologizes for false claims in election conspiracy theory film ‘2000 Mules’

Months before the MAGA filmmaker apologized to a Georgia voter for wrongly accusing him of election fraud, his widely debunked film and book was pulled by the publisher as part of a defamation lawsuit settlement.

Far-right provocateur and pardoned felon Dinesh D’Souza has issued an apology over false accusations he made in his 2022 election conspiracy theory movie 2000 Mules, acknowledging that his claims about illegal “ballot trafficking” during the 2020 presidential election were misleading and inaccurate.

In a lengthy statement posted to his website on Sunday, D’Souza said that his movie — which asserts that “mules” were paid to fraudulently deposit harvested ballots in swing states — had relied on “cell phone geolocation data” provided by conservative non-profit group True the Vote. That data, D’Souza noted, had turned out to be false.

“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,” he wrote. “We recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data.”

Adding that his movie and companion book created the “impression that these individuals were mules that had been identified as suspected ballot harvesters” based on True the Vote’s cell phone data, D’Souza conceded that these people were wrongfully accused of misconduct.

Conservative filmmaker and author Dinesh D'Souza speaks during the final day of the 2014 Republican Leadership Conference (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“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,” he stated. “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.”

After the Georgia Bureau of Investigation exonerated Andrews of any illegal activity, finding that he was legally dropping off ballots for members of his family, Andrews filed a defamation lawsuit against D’Souza, True the Vote and Salem Media, the publisher of 2000 Mules. In his lawsuit, Andrews alleged that the baseless claims made in the film led to violent threats against him and his family.

Settling its end of the defamation suit, Salem Media apologized to Andrews in May of this year and halted distribution of D’Souza’s film and book on all of its platforms. In its statement, the conservative media company said it “relied on representations made to us by Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote.”

Even before Andrews filed his lawsuit, 2000 Mules had been widely debunked over the “categorically false” claims and conspiracy theories it peddled in service of Donald Trump’s repeated and groundless assertions that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.

True the Vote, for instance, insisted that its geolocation data was so accurate that it had been used to solve a murder. NPR found that was far from the truth. In the end, the right-wing organization admitted to a Georgia judge earlier this year that it does not have the evidence to support its claims of illegal ballot stuffing.

Additionally, just before it hit shelves, the 2000 Mules book had to be abruptly pulled to remove false claims made about other nonprofits amid threats of legal action.

Despite admitting that the data he relied on from True the Vote was bogus, D’Souza — a known conspiracist with a long history of peddling falsehoods — insisted that “the underlying premise of the film holds true.” He also claimed that he continued “to have faith that True the Vote’s underlying geolocation data and analysis” found suspicious voting activity.

Still, D’Souza wanted to be clear that Andrews did nothing wrong. At the same time, he claimed that the apology wasn’t part of settling Andrews’ lawsuit against him.

“Again, I apologize to Mr. Andrews. I make this apology not under the terms of a settlement agreement or other duress, but because it is the right thing to do, given what we have now learned,” he concluded in his weekend apology. While I do not believe Mr. Andrews was ever identified by the film or book, I am sorry for any harm he believes he and his family has suffered as a result of ‘2000 Mules.’”

The Independent has reached out to D’Souza to see if he has settled with Andrews.