La Jolla resident Dinesh D’Souza who’s made a living as a rightwing agitator and conspiracy theorist has done what is unthinkable in his circle of never-give-an-inch partisan warriors: apologize.

He says he’s sorry for falsely accusing Georgia resident and non-public figure, Mark Andrews, of voter fraud in his widely debunked film, 2,000 Mules. His apology was contained in a statement he made last week.

The thesis of D’Souza’s film was that there was massive, widespread fraud in the 2020 election, for which he provided documentation – specifically, surveillance videos of purported “mules” like Mark Andrews who, it was claimed, were engaged in stuffing drop boxes with illegal ballots.

Said documentation, he now admits, was based on “inaccurate information.”

Andrews, whose blurred face is seen as he puts five ballots in a drop box, was, according to a state investigation, simply dropping off ballots for himself, his wife and their three children, all of whom resided in the same home. Nothing about it was mysterious or illegal.

But in 2000 Mules, Andrews is portrayed as a “ballot harvester” who’s part of a coordinated voter fraud effort. D’Souza can be heard ominously saying, “What you are seeing is a crime. These are fraudulent votes.”

Which makes D’Souza’s apology rather underwhelming, especially when he writes, “I know that the film and my book create the impression that these individuals were mules that had been identified as suspected ballot harvesters.” Not an impression but rather a bold, explicit, omniscient statement: “What you are seeing is a crime.” He could have inserted the proverbial “alleged crime” or “may be a crime,” but he chose not to.

D’Souza Deceived

D’Souza blames True the Vote, a so-called election monitoring organization that provided him with the videos used in the film. According to his account, True the Vote, a project of former Tea Party activist Catherine Engelbrecht, misled D’Souza by falsely claiming the videos were linked to geolocation data.

D’Souza insisted in his statement that had he “known then that the videos were not linked to geolocation data, I would have clarified this and produced and edited the film differently.”

Had he known…but it was his responsibility to know and to choose his sources wisely.

D’Souza’s Defamation

Andrews filed a defamation lawsuit against D’Souza, True the Vote and Salem Media Group, the documentary’s distributor. Salem settled the lawsuit and no longer distributes the film. It also apologized to Andrews. And now Andrews has received D’Souza’s apology, which D’Souza said was not prompted by a settlement agreement but “because it is the right thing to do.”

The influence of D’Souza’s 2000 Mules can’t be overstated. It became a bible for the election-fraud and -denial crowd in the wake of the 2020 election. A cornerstone of the movement, the film helped unleash the beast and was followed by similar claims made by the far-right website Gateway Pundit, a favorite of President-elect Trump’s, which faced a separate defamation lawsuit; former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was ordered by a court to pay $148 million for libeling two Atlanta election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, by falsely accusing them of election fraud (The litigants are now in the process of seizing Giuliani’s assets); and, the Trump-friendly media network, San Diego-based One America News, which acknowledged spreading false election claims and apologized to the election workers. Point Loma Nazarene University grad Natalie Harp was an OAN anchor during this time and played a main role in perpetuating the election lies, even taking former Attorney General Bill Barr to task for not supporting the election fraud narrative. This was before Harp became Trump’s newest It Girl.  

Over his career, D’Souza has evolved, or devolved, from noted conservative intellectual to conspiracy theorist. But whatever you think of him, what’s inarguable is that he’s been prolific. He keeps the hungriest of lib-owners satiated with a large and steady helping of red meat that includes over 16 books with titles like Illiberal Education and The End of Racism, and documentaries such as Obama’s America and 2,000 Mules.

Not bad for an immigrant from Bombay, India who came to America in 1978 while still in high school and went on to attend Dartmouth (with fellow righty and Fox News host Laura Ingraham) and work in the Reagan White House. D’Souza became a U.S. citizen in 1991. He is a multi-millionaire who, incidentally, enjoys breakfast at Harry’s in La Jolla.

D’Souza’s Decline

Sounds like the American Dream, doesn’t it?

Except for one little blemish.

In 2012, D’Souza was convicted of a felony for making illegal campaign contributions. He was ordered as part of an eight-month sentence to stay at a federal correctional reentry facility not far from downtown San Diego, where he slept on a mattress in a dorm-like setting with 120 other guys – a far cry from his $3 million home in La Jolla. (He also owned an 8,000-square-foot home in Fairbanks Ranch.)

In 2018, Trump pardoned D’Souza.

After President Biden pardoned his son Hunter, Dinesh D’Souza tweeted sarcastically, “No one is above the law—except my son Hunter!” Posters on X had fun reminding D’Souza that he too was pardoned.

Trivial Pursuit: Why doesn’t D’Souza have a conventional Indian last name? Because the Portuguese colonized the port city of Goa, in southern India – where his family is from –and converted the Hindu people to Catholicism. Dinesh is an Indian first name that means “God of the sun.”