ATLANTA (AP) — The creator of the widely debunked film “2000 Mules” has issued a statement saying “inaccurate information” was provided to him about ballot box surveillance videos featured in the film and apologizing to a Georgia man in one of those videos who was falsely accused of ballot fraud during the 2020 election.
Filmmaker and conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza said in the statement that the film and the book of the same name were based on cellphone geolocation data collected by True the Vote. The Texas-based nonprofit also provided him with drop box surveillance footage and D'Souza said his team had been “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.”
Gwinnett County resident Mark Andrews is seen in one of the videos, his face blurred, putting five ballots in a drop box in Lawrenceville, an Atlanta suburb, as D’Souza says: “What you are seeing is a crime. These are fraudulent votes.”
A state investigation found that Andrews was dropping off ballots for himself, his wife and their three adult children, who all lived at the same address. That is legal in Georgia, and an investigator said there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Andrews.
The film suggests that ballot “mules” aligned with Democrats were paid to illegally collect and deliver ballots in Georgia and four other closely watched states. An Associated Press analysis found that it is based on faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data.
D'Souza's statement says interviews in the film make clear that True the Vote “was correlating the videos to geolocation data.” But, he wrote, “We recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data.”
He acknowledged that the film and book “create the impression that these individuals were mules that had been identified as suspected ballot harvesters based on their geotracked cell phone data.” Though their faces were blurred, Andrews has publicly come forth and sued over the use of his image, and D'Souza said he owes Andrews an apology.
He said the surveillance videos in the film “were characterized on the basis of inaccurate information provided to me and my team" and that if he'd known they weren't linked to geolocation data, “I would have clarified this and produced and edited the film differently.”
But D'Souza said he continues to have confidence in True the Vote's work and in the basic message of the film, that the 2020 election was not secure and "there was systematic election fraud sufficient to call the outcome into question.” State and federal authorities have said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in that election.
True the Vote issued a “clarification” Monday on D'Souza's statement. It says the central premise of the film “remains accurate,” but says it had no editorial control and didn't select the videos or graphics used. Andrews was not part of the “geospatial study” True the Vote did, “a fact that was communicated to Mr. D'Souza's team.”
“Despite this, D'Souza's team included a blurred video of this individual in their ‘2000 Mules’ movie and book productions,” the statement says.
Andrews filed a federal lawsuit in October 2022 against D’Souza, True the Vote and Salem Media Group.
Salem Media Group, the publisher of “2000 Mules,” issued a statement in May apologizing to Andrews and saying it had removed the films from its platforms and would not further distribute the film or book. A few days later, Andrews dismissed his claims against Salem.
D'Souza said his apology to Andrews was not made “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.” Lawyers for Andrews did not immediately respond to a request for comment.