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Blackvegetable » Today, 7:18 am » wrote: ↑

Today, 7:18 am

The creators and publisher of the 2020 election conspiracy film "2000 Mules" retracted and pulled the project from distribution following a defamation lawsuit. The retractions involved publisher Salem Media Group and director Dinesh D'Souza apologizing to a Georgia voter who was falsely accused of illegal ballot harvesting. [1, 2, 3]  

Publisher and Director Apologies  
• Salem Media Group retraction: On May 31, 2024, the publisher pulled the film and accompanying book from its platforms and issued a public apology. They settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Mark Andrews, an Atlanta-area voter. 
• Dinesh D'Souza statement: On December 2, 2024, D'Souza published a separate statement admitting that the surveillance videos used in the film were not actually correlated with the cellphone geolocation data as originally claimed. He apologized to Andrews for the false accusations. [3, 5]   

The Defamation Lawsuit  
• Mark Andrews case: The Georgia Bureau of Investigation cleared Andrews in May 2022, proving he was legally dropping off ballots for his own family members living at the same address. 
• False portrayal: Despite this, the film used footage of Andrews to claim ballot drop box crimes were occurring, leading to intense harassment and threats against him and his family. [1, 2, 4]   AI responses may include mistakes. [1] https://www.npr.org/2024/05/31/g-s1-229 ... -apology[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/us/p ... ump.html[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Mules[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... -pulled/[5] https://www.npr.org/2024/12/02/g-s1-365 ... es-apology