Filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza apologized to a voter he wrongly accused of mail ballot fraud in his movie and book 2000 Mules, blaming “inaccurate information” provided by Texas-based election integrity nonprofit True the Vote.
“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,” D’Souza said in a statement released Sunday.
It turns out they had not.
D’Souza wrote the movie and book about alleged ballot harvesting in the 2020 election based on cell phone data and analysis from True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht and her partner Gregg Phillips, whose company OPSEC Group has received more than $1 million from TTV.
Engelbrecht and Phillips starred in the movie and are credited as executive producers.
2000 Mules was released in May 2022. In August 2022, D’Souza also published a book by the same name, advertised as exposing “the powerful evidence of voting fraud” that he described as “reliable as fingerprint and DNA evidence.”
In his statement Sunday, D’Souza said he “recently learned” that the ballot drop box videos provided by True the Vote were not linked to the purported phone geolocation data.
“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,” wrote D’Souza.
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… 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,” he wrote. “We operated in good faith and in reliance on True the Vote.”
Georgia voter Mark Andrews sued D’Souza, True the Vote, and publisher Salem Media Group for defamation in October 2022.
Salem settled with Andrews in May for a “significant” amount and pulled the film and book from distribution.
True the Vote acknowledged in court filings that claims they made about Andrews in the movie and during media appearances promoting the film were merely “opinions” based solely on the drop box video and not any other information, such as cell phone data.
In a statement issued Monday in response to D’Souza, True the Vote claimed that the “central premise” of the movie “remains accurate.”
However, regarding the individual mentioned in Mr. D’Souza’s statement, TTV had no editorial control over the ‘2000 Mules’ movie and no involvement in the books. We did not select videos or graphics used for dramatic effect. This individual was not part of the geospatial study in which TTV identified 242 unique devices having visited at least 10 ballot drop boxes—a fact that was communicated to Mr. D’Souza’s team.
Fox News showed the drop box video of Andrews when Engelbrecht appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show in May 2022. During the interview, she did not disclose that the video had not been matched with any geospatial cell phone data—which D’Souza noted was “the main premise” of 2000 Mules.
D’Souza also said he believes the “underlying premise” of the movie still “holds true,” even though the supporting information presented in the film was “inaccurate” and unverified.
His book also raised questions and was recalled soon after its release due to what was called a “publishing error.”
NPR compared the recalled book with the version re-released in October 2022 and found the most notable change was the removal of names of nonprofit groups accused of acting as illegal ballot “stash houses.”
True the Vote told NPR it “had no participation” in the book and “made no such allegations” against any specific organizations, although Engelbrecht and Phillips accused unnamed organizations of being part of the ballot “mules” scheme.
D’Souza apologized to Andrews “not under the terms of a settlement agreement or other duress, but because it is the right thing to do.” He may, like Salem, also negotiate a financial settlement.
Engelbrecht, Phillips, and True the Vote are continuing to litigate Andrews’ defamation claim filed against them.
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