I won't get in to debunking Dinesh D'Souza's new 'documentary' called "2000 Mules". Many other people have done good work on that. The movie is very sparse on facts, merely parroting another organization's claims and presenting them as absolute proof. That organization is "True The Vote", and the narrator of D'Souza's film is the head of "True The Vote". It is, for all intents and purposes, merely a rant by a highly partisan group that presents no proof -- only claims that it has proof.
TTV has made wild claims before, similarly insisting they had proof and then walking it back. The "proof" in these previous claims were merely speculation by partisans, not eyewitness statements or insider "whistleblowers" -- though TTV strongly implied they were airtight evidence right up until the point the 'evidence' was examined. One person noticed election workers buying lunch at a food truck outside the facility used for the election count. The food truck staff could have been passing the election workers fake ballots, therefore one Trump supporter who witnessed this was absolutely convinced this was, in fact, happening. She even signed an affidavit to that effect, and TTV screeched that they had "irrefutable proof". The extent of TTV's 'investigation' was to coach the woman when she wrote her affidavit. No one in TTV asked, "Did you actually see any ballots change hands?". Of course, the subsequent official investigation asked those questions, and the result was that the woman saw someone buying lunch.
There were several other cases like this in the 2020 GA election. In every case, TTV crowed that the official investigation was proof these claims were meritorious -- until the investigation was completed. Once the investigation was done, and everyone saw that TTV had a different definition of 'evidence' than the rest of the world did, the official investigation that supposedly would vindicate their claims was denounced as a sham. Over and over again, these die-hard Trump supporters who had lied about what they actually saw were portrayed as brave "whistleblowers" by TTV. The word "whistleblower" usually refers to someone inside an organization who takes a risk in exposing secret activities or facts that they were privy to.
In contrast, none of the "whistleblowers" that TTV produced to prove its claim that "millions" of fraudulent ballots were cast in Georgia were "insiders". Many of these affidavits sounded like a drunken rant from a barstool -- little more than "We know the Dems are cheating. If you don't believe it, then you must be an idiot!". Simply because someone signs an affidavit that doesn't magically transform their speculative rant into airtight, concrete fact. TTV made no effort to sort through this supposed evidence, either. It was all considered credible by them, because it supported their pre-conceived notions.
Yet, most of the case presented by "2000 Mules" rests on an unknown "whistleblower", and we just have to accept the word of "True The Vote" that this source is credible. This source claims that people were paid $10 per ballot, told to drop these fake ballots into drop boxes, and take a picture of each ballot to prove it was done. Not surprisingly, this "whistleblower" wishes to remain unknown. We are left to assume that, unlike so many previous claims, this time TTV vetted their source. No real mention is made of this mysterious source having any hard evidence, either. Once again, the source just knows something happened and that's good enough for TTV.
Beyond that, TTV claims to have geotag data from cell phones 'proving' that people came within 100 feet of a drop box several times. D'Souza doesn't actually present this evidence, however. He instead accepts it as ironclad proof, as he has previously accepted (or tacitly nodded to) claims by Giuliani and Powell, for example.
When called on this, D'Souza falls on back on "You don't believe in geotagging data!", when none of this supposed data has ever been presented to the public. D'Souza claims that TTV has made "reports" to the authorities, merely implying that these reports included the geotagging data from phones. One must also wonder if this "data", assuming it even exists, is verifiable. Did it actually come from cell phone carriers, or was it just fabricated by people who already 'knew' what "the truth" was?
This is a fatal flaw in most of the Right's narratives: they assume they have complete credibility. Certainly, their partisan base will believe virtually anything if it supports their viewpoint.
I can recall a local example from the 2012 election. The local Fox affiliate ran a story about proof of voter fraud the day after the election. Yes, a brave "whistleblower" had exposed the fraud: a black congregation had rented a school bus and driven two dozen or more people around the city to vote multiple times, and he had the proof!
Of course, this brave whistleblower was really just a die-hard Republican who had made up his mind in advance that this was happening, and speculated the rest. Aside from multiple pictures of a school bus parked outside of one polling place (gasp!), he had video of black people coming out the school bus!
The deeper the Fox affiliate dug into the story, the more it smelled funny. Rather than trying to conceal the facts, the pastor and congregants were quite open. They had, in fact, rented the bus for one hour. It carried some congregants (mostly elderly) to one single polling place and returned them to the church. They produced the rental document, which showed the driver's name.
Aha! The driver! The investigative team had them now! This was built up as some kind of major scoop, which would be 'exposed'.
The driver was, of course, completely open about the entire affair. They had driven from the church to the polling place and back. It took a while to round everyone up after voting, he said, because the congregants wanted to "socialize". Voting records showed that everyone who had voted was registered to vote in that polling place.
Then, after three days of this, we found out about the "whistleblower". It was assumed he was a congregant, but he was actually a fat-ass white guy who went to a completely different church nowhere near the black church in question. He had edited out his remarks to the elderly black congregants as they got off the bus: remarks about "welfare checks" and "mug shots". His video had removed his 'interview" with the pastor, who had explained what they were doing and who provided his name (and the church's) to his inquisitor. The "whistleblower" had strongly implied that the black people had been evasive and (his term) "shifty", but even the driver said everyone was reasonably polite to "the jerk who was hassling them".
In spite of the (white) driver being presented as an unimpeachable witness early on, the "whistleblower" changed his tune and called him "sketchy" because he wouldn't say how much he was being paid. The black pastor asked the white woman reporter how much she was paid in a follow-up interview. Naturally, she fell back on the "I'm the one asking the questions", and refused to answer. The black pastor then asked if she felt she was "sketchy" for refusing to state her salary. The interviewer spun this as the pastor being "combative", implying that has was being less than honest to a poor defenseless white woman. Gosh, she barely escaped!
At this point, it was obvious the Fox affiliate had been taken for a ride by a partisan jackass. Yet, they still demanded a "deeper investigation" by the police into this case. On what basis, you may ask:
- The "whistleblower" was a born-again Christian, implying this meant he wouldn't lie. His pastor defended his character, without discussing that his 'facts' had turned out to be complete speculation.
- Other churches, mosques, etc. had congregants from across the metro. It was apparently suspicious that this black congregation had two dozen people who went to the same polling place. The black pastor had already explained that these people were chosen for the bus ride precisely because they all went to the same polling place. But, yeah, that's suspicious.
- A retired bus driver said that a bus could take a group like that to three different polling places in an hour. Of course, there was no evidence at all that the driver did that, and the "whistleblower" admitted that he didn't actually follow the bus to any other polling places. He 'knew' that's what the plan was, though.
- The Fox news team wouldn't have spent four days on this story if there wasn't some merit to it. There were vague allusions to "hidden facts" the team had turned up. Later, this turned out to be that the bus driver had told a reporter to "F off" and refused to answer questions regarding his religious beliefs, views on race, and education.
Naturally, the completely neutral and objective "whistleblower" dismissed the Fox affiliate's investigation as a "total cover up" by "the liberal media" who ignored the 'evidence'. The "whistleblower" doubled down, and claimed that the bus driver was Jewish -- almost as if that was illegal -- and that he had made a big mistake in trusting him to tell the truth. The point is this: by what stretch of the imagination could anyone credibly describe this hateful, partisan jackass (whose mind was made up before he had even thought about gathering 'evidence') -- as a "whistleblower"?
Again, there is no evidence -- not even a clear claim from D'Souza -- that TTV's "whistleblower" was part of the organization that paid people to put ballots into drop boxes. Instead, D'Souza dismisses any concerns about the identity of the "whistleblower". The person simply doesn't want to be involved in an official investigation, per D'Souza. They aren't asking for immunity or even providing solid evidence. This sounds a lot like D'Souza found someone willing to speculate about something other people were doing. In fact, if you read between the lines, it seems doubtful that D'Souza ever even met this "whistleblower". He seems to be relying entirely on TTV's assessment of the individual's credibility.
The ballots cast by drop boxes have been thoroughly examined. While it would be illegal for someone to drop off 10 ballots at 10 different drop boxes, there is no reason to believe that these ballots were fraudulent or cast by non-existent people. D'Souza doesn't even make that claim, specifically. As for the 'evidence' in the movie, D'Souza shows one person taking a picture of the drop box after he deposited the ballot. By the "whistleblower's" own standards, that would not be sufficient proof to earn the putative $10. Instead, D'Souza -- like an objective person would -- decides that the lack of surveillance cameras at other drop boxes proves that other people took pictures of themselves breaking the law. Like all conspiracy theories, the lack of evidence is the 'proof'. If D'Souza can show one person taking a picture of a drop box, that 'obviously" means that thousands did the same. This is much like the "whistleblower" in my local story using the picture of a school bus parked at one polling place to 'prove' that the bus visited multiple polling places. You just 'know' that's what they did. Now 'investigate' it.
Last, we are left to wonder how, if TTV has access to legitimate cell phone geotag data, they could not identify any of these individuals by anything other than their phone IDs. Are we left to assume that TTV found multiple "whistleblowers" at multiple cell phone companies to provide geotag data, yet these "whistleblowers" refused to make the final step to provide their names?
Imagine the police show up at your door and arrest you for armed robbery. At the indictment, the prosecutor says they have geotag data placing you at an ATM where someone was robbed. Of course, you aren't in any surveillance footage from the ATM -- which proves that you are really clever, rather than exonerating you. Can I see this geotag data that places you at the ATM at the specific time, the judge asks? Nah, just trust us. We're totally sure it's you. Some secret guy said so. Did the victim pick you out of a lineup? Nope, which proves that they are scared of you. But your employer says you were clocked in at work ten miles away at the time of the robbery. Well, of course they did. They are in on it. Some secret guy told us the whole story. Your boss gets a cut of your take. She denies it, of course, which just proves the whole thing is true because we already know that you're a criminal. And, Judge... we're pretty sure she's a lesbian. Maybe even Jewish. The secret guy has told us everything. You've got to indict, because otherwise you don't believe geotag data.
No judge would buy this.