Fact Checking Dinesh D’Souza’s ‘2,000 Mules’

On May 7, 2,000 Mules, a documentary film from right-wing provocateur Dinesh D'Souza, debuted in more than  270 theaters across the country. The movie, which grossed more than $1 million on the streaming service Rumble in under 12 hours, purports to have used cell phone geolocation data and video surveillance of mail-in ballot drop boxes to argue that President Joe Biden lost the 2020 election. 

D'Souza has a history of promoting false and misleading claims and has also received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump for a felony conviction for making illegal campaign contributions.

The basic premise of the 90-minute film is that 2,000 “mules” or “paid professional operatives” delivered “fraudulent and illegal votes” to mail-in drop boxes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia. The film supposedly uncovers an “elaborate network” of “mules” in key states that would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. The evidence in question comes from conservative Texas-based organization True the Vote, founded by Catherine Engelbrecht. Throughout the movie, D'Souza interviews Engelbrecht as well as Gregg Phillips, a True the Vote board member, who is described as “having a deep background in election intelligence,” and explains the cell phone geolocation data on which True the Vote bases its claims.