Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza issued an apology to a man whose blurred-out face appears in the 2020 election conspiracy film for falsely identifying him as a ballot harvester, saying surveillance video footage was not correlated with cell-phone geolocation data as the movie suggests.
“As those who have seen the film or read the book know, ‘2000 Mules’ was based on cell phone geolocation data collected and reviewed by True the Vote,” D’Souza said in the statement on his website. “An analysis of this data revealed highly suspicious patterns of certain cell phones, which were recorded in the location of 10 or more dropboxes. This data was the premise of the film.”
D’Souza said the film makes clear that True The Vote linked the footage and data, but that “we recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data,” creating the impression that the people pictured were ballot “mules” illegally harvesting votes in 2020.
“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,” D’Souza wrote. “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. 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 argued that his team “operated in good faith and in reliance on True the Vote,” and doubled down on the “basic message” of “2000 Mules,” that there was “systematic election fraud sufficient to call the outcome into question.”
“While the video in the film created an incorrect inference as to Mr. Andrews, the underlying premise of the film holds true,” he wrote.
The distributor of D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” book apologized to Andrews in May.
“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,” D’Souza said. “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.”
