The film 2000 Mules made sensational claims: widespread election fraud had swung the 2020 election for Joe Biden. But lawyers defending the filmmakers have admitted in an Atlanta courtroom they didn’t have any evidence for these charges.
The admission came last December but wasn’t reported until Wednesday by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Associated Press.
2000 Mules aired on Christian TV networks, was promoted by conservative evangelical political groups, and was shown in hundreds of churches, even amid widespread skepticism about its wild claims that human “mules” harvested 400,000 fake ballots to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump.
Dinesh D’Souza
The film was made by conspiracy theorist and former Christian leader Dinesh D’Souza, a Trump loyalist who was pardoned by Trump after pleading guilty to a felony charge for making illegal campaign contributions. D’Souza claims he relied on evidence from a right-wing group, True the Vote.
D’Souza and True the Vote face numerous lawsuits. The admission that True the Vote has no evidence for its claims comes as the state of Georgia is fighting its election systems against unfounded claims by Trump and his followers.
True the Vote filed complaints with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2021, promising to provide detailed evidence of voter fraud. It later tried to withdraw the complaints. Georgia investigated the claims but found them wanting.
A judge asked the group to back up the claims it made, but the group refused to comply, leading to a subpoena, which the group ignored. True the Vote claimed to have testimony from witnesses of fraud but said it couldn’t reveal who they were because it had promised confidentiality.
“Once again, True the Vote has proven itself untrustworthy and unable to provide a shred of evidence for a single one of their fairy-tale allegations.”
Georgia finally took the group to court, which led to the attorney’s stunning admission that the group lacks the evidence to support its claims.
The AP reported comments from Raffensperger’s spokesman about the admission: “Once again, True the Vote has proven itself untrustworthy and unable to provide a shred of evidence for a single one of their fairy-tale allegations. Like all the lies about Georgia’s 2020 election, their fabricated claims of ballot harvesting have been repeatedly debunked.”
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump summarized the news in his column, “The Final Repudiation of 2000 Mules: “There has been no more influential presentation of his theory that the election was stolen than the film 2000 Mules. … The only problem, of course, was that it was all nonsense.”
CNN reported 69% of Republicans and conservative independents believe the false claim Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president.
Political commentator Dinesh D’Souza speaks to supporters of former President Donald Trump who attend a campaign rally to benefit Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz at the Westmoreland County Fairgrounds on May 6, 2022, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. . (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
It’s not clear if the attorneys’ confession will shake the faith of Christians who avidly promoted the film, as BNG reported last November:
- Christian radio host Eric Metaxas, who has been sued for defaming a voting machine executive, says 2000 Mules “gives us flat-out proof that the 2020 election was stolen.”
- Charisma hailed the film’s “New, Credible Evidence of 2020 Election Fraud.”
- Mike Huckabee, honorary national chairman for the conservative group My Faith Votes, promoted the film on his Trinity Broadcasting Network show.
- Movieguide called the film “a shocking, disturbing exposé of a Democrat, leftist campaign to get Joe Biden illegitimately elected as president.”
- Health-and-wealth preacher Andrew Wommack’s political group promotes D’Souza’s films and featured him in a podcast in May.
- Focus on the Family defended True the Vote in a 2019 article about an IRS “scandal” in which it politically targeted conservative groups.
- Salem Media Group, the onetime Christian media empire that has evolved into a powerhouse of secular right-wing programming, invested $4.5 million in the film and crowed about its success.
Trump also has cited the film in defending his claims of election fraud.
True the Vote faces other legal challenges.
Mark Andrews, a Black man accused of being one of the 2,000 vote-stealing mules, was only turning in ballots from him and his family members. He has sued involved parties for defamation, including D’Souza, Salem, Regnery Publishing (which produced a companion book), and True the Vote leader Catherine Engelbrecht. Engelbrecht was jailed in 2022 for failing to comply with a court order to provide information related to Andrews’ lawsuit.
Officials in Arizona have sought investigations of True the Vote after the group failed to provide evidence of its claims of election fraud in that state.
An IRS watchdog complaint claims Engelbrecht and Phillips used donations for personal gain.
Engelbrecht and Phillips also raised $12.5 million for a Freedom Hospital in Ukraine that never materialized.
And James Bopp Jr., a prominent anti-abortion attorney who has worked with National Right to Life Committee and Focus on the Family, was defending True the Vote in Georgia but left the case, citing nearly $1 million in unpaid legal bills.
Related articles:
Lawsuit says True the Vote sought voter intimidation, not ‘election integrity’
Dinesh D’Souza must defend 2000 Mules election denial claims in court
Two evangelical Christian leaders indicted along with Trump in Georgia
Another ‘Christian attorney’ pleads guilty to spreading Trump’s Big Lie