Will Dinesh D’Souza Owe More Than an Apology for Error in 2000 Mules

Dinesh D’Souza’s 2000 Mules team ignored factual communication says True the Vote, which helped with the video on alleged 2020 U.S. Election fraud

(Photo: Dinesh D’Souza)

December 14, 2024

In 2022, Dinesh D’Souza released a documentary 2000 Mules, which, his website states, exposes “widespread, coordinated voter fraud in the 2020 (U.S. Presidential) election, sufficient to change the overall outcome. Drawing on research provided by the election integrity group True the Vote…(the video) exposes an elaborate network of paid professional operatives called mules delivering fraudulent and illegal votes to mail-in dropboxes in the five key states where the election was decided.”

A DVD, which runs 88 minutes and sells for $18.50, has gotten an average 4.8 star ratings from more than 2,500 reviewers on Amazon. D’Souza has also published a companion book, 2,000 Mules: They Thought We’d Never Find Out. They Were Wrong.

Mark Andrews, one of the alleged mules featured in the video, with his face blurred, is shown depositing his ballot, and those of his family members, into a drop box in an Atlanta suburb. “What you are seeing is a crime,” a voiceover from D’Souza declares, according to CNN. “These are fraudulent votes.”

“Without evidence, Dinesh D’Souza and (others)…manufactured a reputation-injuring lie about our client Mark Andrews, who legally placed his own ballot and those of his family into a ballot dropbox ahead of the 2020 election,” Protect Democracy and its partners stated about a lawsuit they filed in 2022 on behalf of Andrews against D’Souza and the others involved with the film. “Their lies portrayed Andrews, recorded on surveillance footage depositing the ballots, as a so-called ‘ballot mule’ working to illegally cast votes in an effort to steal the election away from then-President Donald Trump.”

The “defendants repeated these lies many times over in media appearances and posts on social media. These lies are textbook defamation,” the Protect Democracy statement added. They also violate a law which prohibits “the kind of intimidation that Defendants are now engaged in.”

Dinesh D’Souza’s website describes him as one of America’s “most articulate spokesmen for a reasoned and thoughtful conservatism…(and) equally brilliant and forceful defender of Christianity.” D’Souza’s first book, Illiberal Education (1991), publicized the phenomenon of political correctness in America’s colleges and universities.

A former policy analyst in President Ronald Reagan’s Administration, D’Souza was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He served as the president of The King’s College in New York City, 2010 to 2012. Born in Mumbai, India, D’Souza came to the U.S. as a student, graduating from Dartmouth College in 1983.

In May this year, Salem Media Group, one of whose subsidiaries published D’Souza’s video and book, stated that it “learned that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has cleared Mr. Andrews of illegal voting activity in connection with the event depicted in 2000 Mules…We apologize for the hurt the inclusion of Mr. Andrews’ image in the movie, book, and promotional materials have caused Mr. Andrews and his family. We have removed the film from Salem’s platforms, and there will be no future distribution of the film or the book by Salem.” The documentary is now distributed by D’Souza media.

Earlier this month, D’Souza issued a statement that he owes “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. 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.”

True the Vote, D’Souza added, “provided my team with ballot drop box surveillance footage… 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.”

In response, True The Vote, issued a statement that it “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 (Andrews) was not part of the geospatial study…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.”

D’Souza’s statement notes that he apologizes to Andrews “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.” Also, that he continues to have confidence “in the basic message of ‘2000 Mules,’…that there was systematic election fraud sufficient to call the outcome into question.” Lawyers for Andrews have not responded to media requests for comment on D’Souza’s apology.

D’Souza may soon owe more than an apology, according to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. Salem Media settled its liability with Andrews “for a significant [confidential] amount,” court filings say, the Journal reports. “Indulging Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen has ruined many reputations. The latest is the unraveling of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) mockumentary ‘2000 Mules.’”