Jeff Swensen/Getty
In Dinesh D’Souza’s unhinged, broadly maligned, and discredited pseudo-documentary 2,000 Mules, he accuses quite a lot of American voters of performing as “mules”—trafficking pretend ballots in an effort to tip the results of the 2020 presidential election.
These so-called couriers had been featured prominently within the movie, which used surveillance footage of them putting the ballots into drop-boxes, and supposedly catching them of their villainy. As D’Souza’s ominous voiceover within the film proclaimed: “What you're seeing is against the law. These are fraudulent votes.”
The one downside, in fact, is that it was all false, based on one of many voters spotlighted as an alleged mule. Mark Andrews filed swimsuit towards D’Souza on Wednesday, insisting D’Souza and his collaborators falsely accused him of poll fraud by “combining junk pseudoscience and excerpted surveillance video of harmless voters” within the Might 2022 documentary.
2,000 Mules confirmed Andrews, together with his face blurred, depositing 5 ballots right into a Georgia drop-box in 2020, based on his federal grievance. “In actual fact, the video of Mr. Andrews reveals him legally dropping off ballots for himself and his household, a voting technique expressly licensed by Georgia regulation,” it states.
A state probe by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation discovered that Andrews had dedicated no wrongdoing, and dismissed a grievance filed towards him because of the documentary in Might.
“Always, Defendants knew that their portrayals of Mr. Andrews had been lies, as was your complete narrative of 2,000 Mules,” the lawsuit explains. “However they've continued to hawk these lies in an effort to enrich themselves. As of the submitting of this lawsuit, Defendants’ social media accounts and web site nonetheless promote the movie utilizing Mr. Andrews for example of a legal ‘mule.’”
Later within the 123-page grievance, it explains: “Defendants promoted the movie and their “mules” narrative on tv, radio, on-line, and by way of different media—together with in entrance of hundreds of thousands of Fox Information viewers—and repeatedly confirmed pictures of Mr. Andrews as an exemplar ‘mule.’”
Names as co-defendants within the swimsuit are D’Souza’s companions, Gregg Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht of “True the Vote,” a controversial, conservative vote-monitoring group. In September, the group was sued by Konnech, an election logistics software program firm, accusing Phillips and Engelbrecht of stealing knowledge and conducting a xenophobic “smear marketing campaign” towards its chief government.
“The group is assured that the claims relating to True the Vote on this litigation will probably be discovered to be with out benefit,” a True the Vote spokesperson instructed the Atlanta Journal-Structure.
Andrews’ swimsuit is looking for an undefined amount of cash, claiming defamation, intimidation, and invasion of privateness. “As a Black man who grew up within the American South earlier than passage of the Voting Rights Act, Mr. Andrews deeply cherishes the correct to vote, has all the time been proud to solid his poll, and has labored tirelessly to instill these identical values in his household,” it claims.
“Now, due to Defendants’ conspiracy to defame and intimidate Mr. Andrews, he won't ever once more be capable of vote with out wanting over his shoulder.”