www.newsweek.com Open in urlscan Pro
99.83.219.100  Public Scan

Form analysis
4 forms found in the DOM

GET https://www.newsweek.com/search/site/

<form action="https://www.newsweek.com/search/site/" method="get" class="search-block-form--2" accept-charset="UTF-8">
  <div>
    <div class="container-inline">
      <div class="form-item form-type-textfield form-item-search-block-form">
        <label class="element-invisible" for="edit-search-block-form--4">Search </label>
        <input title="Enter the terms you wish to search for." placeholder="Search" type="text" name="q" value="" size="15" maxlength="128" class="form-text">
      </div>
      <div class="form-actions form-wrapper edit-actions--2"><input type="submit" name="op" value="Search" class="form-submit"></div>
      <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" value="form-fZ682WsdOVy0CvQPbIUL2T6In25EQtbU6DClgu3ttr8">
      <input type="hidden" name="form_token" value="NjTiMzKKqA3lZiZaca71FcNN-AlbGkwHKY6-BFpKd3U">
      <input type="hidden" name="form_id" value="search_block_form">
    </div>
  </div>
</form>

GET https://www.newsweek.com/search/site/

<form action="https://www.newsweek.com/search/site/" method="get" class="search-block-form--2" accept-charset="UTF-8">
  <div>
    <div class="container-inline">
      <div class="form-item form-type-textfield form-item-search-block-form">
        <label class="element-invisible" for="edit-search-block-form--4">Search </label>
        <input title="Enter the terms you wish to search for." placeholder="Search" type="text" name="q" value="" size="15" maxlength="128" class="form-text">
      </div>
      <div class="form-actions form-wrapper edit-actions--2"><input type="submit" name="op" value="Search" class="form-submit"></div>
      <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" value="form-fZ682WsdOVy0CvQPbIUL2T6In25EQtbU6DClgu3ttr8">
      <input type="hidden" name="form_token" value="NjTiMzKKqA3lZiZaca71FcNN-AlbGkwHKY6-BFpKd3U">
      <input type="hidden" name="form_id" value="search_block_form">
    </div>
  </div>
</form>

<form class="free-signup">
  <label for="email_address" class="n-title flex-xs ai-c"><span class="icon-n"></span>Get the best of Newsweek via email</label>
  <input type="text" id="email_address" class="form-text" placeholder="Email address">
  <input type="submit" class="form-submit" value="Free Sign Up">
</form>

<form class="free-signup flex-xs">
  <label class="element-invisible" for="sub-email">Email address</label>
  <input type="text" class="form-text" id="sub-email" placeholder="Email address">
  <input type="submit" class="form-submit" value="Free Sign Up">
</form>

Text Content

Sat, Mar 05, 2022
LOGIN Subscribe for $1
Newsweek
Search

 * U.S.
 * World
 * Business
 * Tech & Science
 * Culture
 * Autos
 * Sports
 * Health
 * Opinion
 * Experts
 * Education
 * Podcasts

 * About Us
 * Announcements
 * Archive

Sat, Mar 05, 2022
LOGIN Subscribe for $1
Newsweek
Search

 * U.S.
 * World
 * Business
 * Tech & Science
 * Culture
 * Autos
 * Sports
 * Health
 * Opinion
 * Experts
 * Education
 * Podcasts

 * About Us
 * Announcements
 * Archive



Politics


FILM CLAIMS IT HAS VIDEO OF "MULES" STUFFING BALLOT BOXES IN 2020 ELECTION

By Paul Bond On 3/2/22 at 5:00 AM EST

01:34
Watch The Trailer For 2000 Mules
Share
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedInShare on RedditShare on
Flipboard Share via Email Comments
Politics Dinesh D'Souza Donald Trump Joe Biden


After Joe Biden beat Donald Trump to become the nation's 46th president, the
Department of Homeland Security declared that the 2020 election was "the most
secure in American history." But conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza is likely
to set off a new firestorm with a documentary using video he says was obtained
through open-records requests that allegedly shows "mules" stuffing ballot
boxes.

D'Souza tells Newsweek his point isn't to convince moviegoers that the
presidential election that Joe Biden won and Donald Trump lost ought to be
overturned, only that the reflexive claim that there were no major
irregularities is untrue.

The movie is made in conjunction with True the Vote, a Texas organization that
bills itself as an anti-voter fraud group.



"There is no way to know who the votes were cast for. But what we do know is the
claim that 2020 was 'the most secure election ever' is false," says Catherine
Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote.

Newsweek Newsletter sign-up >

Mules are described in the movie as paid or unpaid operatives who, in 2020, put
ballots in multiple drop boxes that had been set up to make it more convenient
for voters in the midst of the COVID pandemic.


Many entities have debunked the notion of widespread fraud, including an
Associated Press investigation last year that found only 475 potential instances
of cheating. Also, a New York Times project where reporters spoke to election
officials in every state concluded last year that "there was no evidence that
fraud played a role in the outcome of the presidential race;" a USA Today
investigation in late 2020 concluded accusations of wrongdoing were "unfounded"
or "overblown;" the Brennan Center for Justice noted that "the nation's top
intelligence and law enforcement agencies" called the 2020 election "secure,"
and the list goes on.



But D'Souza says he and True the Vote have sifted through 4 million minutes of
video and identified at least 2,000 mules. One in Georgia dropped ballots in 27
drop boxes in six different counties, according to Engelbrecht.

D'Souza's film, appropriately enough, is dubbed 2,000 Mules and D'Souza recently
dropped its trailer online. "Not at Facebook or YouTube, because those are bogus
platforms that classify as 'misinformation' things they merely disagree with,
but at Rumble," a Canadian-based video service that last year struck a
partnership with Trump Media & Technology Group.

Newsweek subscription offers >

"This one mule made 53 trips to 20 drop boxes," D'Souza says in the trailer as
video of the alleged ballot-stuffer rolls. The trailer shows others the movie
claims are mules, some wearing COVID masks and some not, though many are likely
easily identifiable. D'Souza says he will attempt to interview them prior to the
film's release. D'Souza claims the video in his film "is all concrete and
documentable evidence."

The trailer also alludes to geospatial and telemetric data, which Engelbrecht
claims is the "heart and soul" of the effort to identify suspected mules.



Geospatial technology tracks cellphones to precise locations and has been used
to capture terrorists, but mostly the trillions of data points are gathered by
marketers who sell the information to anyone willing to pay for it, usually
companies targeting consumers with ads or coupons based on the locations they
frequent, according to The New York Times Privacy Project. The Times tracked
visitors to the Playboy Mansion and the estates of celebrities such as Johnny
Depp, Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger just to prove how simple it was to
do so, and published its findings in 2019.

Engelbrecht said her group spent $1 million to obtain geospatial information
from several marketing services that she agreed not to name and $20,000 to
obtain video via open-records requests to counties and cities in five states
where it appeared Trump was winning, until mail-in and drop-box ballots were
counted: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. From there, she
says she and her staff cross-referenced the times and locations of the cell
phones whose users visited multiple drop boxes with the 4 million minutes of
video obtained from city and county governments.


"The geospatial data was the driver," Engelbrecht said. She also said she'll be
turning over time- and date-stamped video that shows the same people inserting
ballots into sometimes dozens of different drop boxes to various law-enforcement
officials.



The federal government's Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency dictates
that video cameras should be trained on ballot drop boxes, but Engelbrecht said
some areas pointed cameras in random directions, entirely missing all activity
near the boxes. In other cases, officials claimed there was no video to share,
even though the law dictates that federal election materials be held and
available for review for 22 months.


Dinesh D'Souza attends the Washington, D.C., premiere of his film "Death of a
Nation" at E Street Cinema. Shannon Finney/Getty Images

Engelbrecht said some officials complied with her open-records requests fully,
but others either partially or not at all.




Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, told Newsweek that True the Vote paid
$2,330.08 for two batches of video, one picked up in May last year and the other
a month later. In Arizona, officials in Yuma County did not supply video, but
Maricopa County officials did.

Detroit officials were unsure whether they had the footage True the Vote sought,
according to Engelbrecht, so efforts to obtain video from that city have been
unsuccessful thus far. Philadelphia denied the open-records request, claiming
its video was part of an ongoing "investigation," according to an email
forwarded by Engelbrecht and reviewed by Newsweek.

An official with Milwaukee said the city offered True the Vote "900 pages of
detailed chain-of-custody records" for its drop boxes, but it withheld 15,120
hours of video footage because it didn't deem that the 22-month retention
requirement applied to it, or that the video would be subject to a public
records request. Newsweek reached out to Milwaukee officials to determine
whether the video still exists; they declined to specify, saying only that "we
maintain and continue to retain all chain of custody records for drop box
retrieval and transportation."



Newsweek confirmed that election officials did not review the video before
sending it to True the Vote, and Newsweek reached out to officials in Yuma
County, Detroit and Philadelphia where True the Vote was unsuccessful in its
attempts to obtain video and did not immediately hear back.

Newsweek also sent the film's trailer to the secretaries of states of Georgia,
Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, alerting them of the possibility video from
their states might be used in the film. Ari Schaffer, director of communications
for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, confirmed that the trailer
and claims made by the upcoming film are "under investigation." This story will
be updated should others reply.

D'Souza is often dubbed the Michael Moore of the right, given that the $33.4
million box-office haul from his first film, 2016: Obama's America, was more
than any other political documentary in history except for Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11. D'Souza's next three films also fared well compared to others in the
category, though his most recent release, Trump Card, available on streaming and
DVD, did not get a theatrical release because of the pandemic.



D'Souza said he may have several high-profile premieres in various parts of the
country for 2,000 Mules that he and other conservative celebrities would attend.
Insiders say it will also be available for streaming via Salem Media, the
conservative talk-radio giant that entered the movie distribution industry two
years ago, though it's unclear now as to whether it will get as wide of a
theatrical release as did his first three films.

Request Reprint & Licensing, Submit Correction or view Editorial Guidelines








The debate
It's Time To Change the Way We Celebrate Black History Month
It's Time To Change the Way We Celebrate Black History Month
By Keith Wyche
VS
Black History Month Has Become a Farce
Black History Month Has Become a Farce
By Ernest Owens
OPINION
 * Putin is No Chess Master
   Putin is No Chess Master
   By Daniel R. DePetris
 * Biden's Bold Gamble Might Just Save Ukraine
   Biden's Bold Gamble Might Just Save Ukraine
   By Shany Mor
 * The War in Ukraine Spells the End of Globalization as We Know It
   The War in Ukraine Spells the End of Globalization as We Know It
   By Dan Perry
 * The Human Side of Data Science Can No Longer Be an Afterthought
   The Human Side of Data Science Can No Longer Be an Afterthought
   By Cecilia Aragon
 * Where Is the Outcry For All Global Conflicts and War?
   Where Is the Outcry For All Global Conflicts and War?
   By Lauren Crosby Medlicott
 * Biden Wants to Crack Down on Foreign Corruption. Here's How
   Biden Wants to Crack Down on Foreign Corruption. Here's How
   By Scott Greytak
 * Clarity on Russia, Ukraine and the American National Interest
   Clarity on Russia, Ukraine and the American National Interest
   By Josh Hammer
 * Biden and Congress Can Fight Inflation Too
   Biden and Congress Can Fight Inflation Too
   By Paul Weinstein Jr.
 * Ketanji Brown Jackson's Historic Nomination Honors Brilliant Black Women
   Ketanji Brown Jackson's Historic Nomination Honors Brilliant Black Women
   By Roger A. Fairfax, Jr.
 * We Care More About Ukraine Because the Victims Are White
   We Care More About Ukraine Because the Victims Are White
   By Michael Shank

Get the best of Newsweek via email




CHOOSE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION
PREMIUM
 * Newsweek magazine delivered to your door
 * Unlimited access to Newsweek.com
 * Ad free Newsweek.com experience
 * iOS and Android app access
 * All newsletters + podcasts

SELECT
DIGITAL+ from $1
 * Unlimited access to Newsweek.com
 * Ad free Newsweek.com experience
 * iOS and Android app access
 * All newsletters + podcasts

SELECT
NEWSLETTER
BEST OF NEWSWEEK VIA EMAIL

Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters

Email address







Newsweek

© 2022 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC

 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 

Editions:
 * U.S. Edition
 * 日本
 * Pakistan
 * Polska
 * România

 * About Us
 * Announcements
 * Archive
 * Corrections
 * Contact Us
 * Editorial Guidelines
 * Mission Statement
 * Advertise
 * Copyright
 * Terms & Conditions
 * Privacy Policy
 * Cookie Policy
 * Terms of Sale
 * Do Not Sell My Personal Information
 * GDPR Privacy Settings