Elections

The publisher of 2000 Mules issued a statement Friday apologizing to a Georgia man who was shown in the film and falsely accused of ballot fraud during the 2020 election.The widely debunked film includes surveillance video showing Mark Andrews, his face blurred, putting five ballots in a drop box in Lawrenceville, an Atlanta suburb, as a voiceover by the conservative pundit and film-maker Dinesh D’Souza says: “What you are seeing is a crime. These are fraudulent votes.”Salem Media Group said in the statement that it had “removed the film from Salem’s platforms, and there will be no future distribution of the film or the book by Salem”.“It was never our intent that the publication of the 2000 Mules film and book would harm Mr Andrews. We apologize for the hurt the inclusion of Mr Andrews’ image in the movie, book, and promotional materials have caused Mr Andrews and his family,” the statement said.A state investigation found that Andrews was dropping off ballots for himself, his wife and their three adult children, who all lived at the same address. That is legal in Georgia, and an investigator said there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Andrews.The film uses research from True the Vote, a Texas-based non-profit, and suggests that ballot “mules” aligned with Democrats were paid to illegally collect and deliver ballots in Georgia and four other closely watched states. An Associated Press analysis found that it is based on faulty assumptions, anonymous accounts and improper analysis of cellphone location data.Salem said it “relied on representations by Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote, Inc (‘TTV’) that the individuals depicted in the videos provided to us by TTV, including Mr Andrews, illegally deposited ballots”.Lawyers for D’Souza and True the Vote did not immediately respond to emails Friday afternoon seeking comment on Salem’s statement.Andrews filed a federal lawsuit in October 2022 against D’Souza, True the Vote and Salem. The case continues, and representatives for Salem and for Andrews’ legal team did not immediately respond to emails asking whether the statement came as a result of the lawsuit. More

WASHINGTON — At Nativity grade school, we grew up steeped in the lore — and gore — of martyrs. For their brave deeds and words, these men and women were stoned, crucified, beheaded, stripped of all their skin, shot with arrows and cooked alive on a red-hot griddle.So I’m a little surprised my siblings would somehow put Donald Trump in those martyrs’ sainted company.My sister and brother, disturbed by Trump’s constant chaos and slashing insults, saw their hopes for Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley evaporate.I called my Republican sibs Friday to see if hearing the word “guilty” ring out 34 times in a New York courtroom had finally severed them from Trump; they are, after all, children of a police detective.My sister, Peggy, said she couldn’t sleep all night.“You decided you can’t vote for a felon?” I asked.“I wasn’t going to vote for Trump,” she said. “But now I am because I thought this whole thing was a sham.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

My mother was born in 1943 in a country where she was not allowed to vote. The Mexican government did not grant women the right to vote in national elections — or the right to hold public office on a national level — until Oct. 17, 1953. Now, almost 71 years later, for the first time two women are leading the race to be Mexico’s next president: Claudia Sheinbaum, who is the front-runner, and Xóchitl Gálvez. It is no small feat for a country with a longstanding and complex relationship with machismo, and where every day some 10 women or girls are killed on average.And yet this accomplishment has often felt like an afterthought during this historic election. Ms. Sheinbaum, a scientist running on the ticket of the ruling Morena party, and Ms. Gálvez, a businesswoman representing a mix of parties from the political establishment, have nodded at the achievements of feminism and its influence on Mexico’s public life. But they have been cautious about lingering too long on women’s issues in their campaigns, conspicuously tiptoeing around abortion and reproductive rights, seemingly out of deference to conservative voters. Neither candidate has put forth a strong agenda to serve the women who put them where they are today.For as Mexico descended into its nightmare of generalized violence, from the U.S.-backed war on drugs to the government of Felipe Calderón and the administration of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, it has been women — their tireless work, infinite rage and deepening sorrow — who have provided a moral compass to this nation. Women’s mobilizations have grown stronger and louder in the face of government indifference and repression, mounting the only serious opposition against the status quo and making women’s issues and gender justice central to any discussion of our shared future.To be fair, male candidates have not historically been required to present their agenda for women either. They are seldom even asked about it. But women constitute a little over half of the Mexican electorate; it is imperative that Ms. Sheinbaum and Ms. Gálvez discuss their views and positions on issues that will affect women’s bodies, security and everyday life — not because they are women, but because they are presidential candidates, striving to represent all of us in the highest political office in the country.On June 2, a woman will almost certainly be given a mandate to govern all of us. She will preside over an electorate that is deeply concerned about insecurity and corruption. The security policy of the current administration — known as “Hugs Not Bullets” — has failed to meaningfully de-escalate the violence unleashed by America’s failed drug policy, a fact painfully brought home by the ever-growing number of disappearances and high rates of gender-related violence. A staggering number of victims’ collectives, made up mostly of the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of the disappeared, travel the nation with little to no funding or institutional support, sometimes unearthing the remains of their loved ones.Women marched to celebrate International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Mexico City on Nov. 25, 2023.Aurea Del Rosario/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

A watchdog agency found roadblocks to the flow of information both within the spy agency and the public service.It can be a bit difficult to keep tabs on the various inquiries and examinations into foreign interference in Canadian elections, particularly by China.The embassy of China in Ottawa. Several inquiries are looking into possible election meddling by the country.Ian Austen/The New York TimesOttawa’s latest growth industry was largely created by a series of leaks of highly classified intelligence that first appeared in The Globe and Mail, and then Global News, that described attempts by the Chinese government to meddle in the last two elections with the goal of returning the Liberals to power, if again with a minority government.First was a report from a group of senior civil servants that found that while China, Russia and Iran had tried to subvert the 2019 and 2021 federal votes, their efforts had failed.Next, David Johnston, the former governor general, looked at the body of evidence that produced the leak. Mr. Johnston stepped down before finishing his inquiry after the opposition argued that his close ties to the Trudeau family meant that his assessment would not be independent. But, in a preliminary report, he concluded that foreign powers were “undoubtedly attempting to influence candidates and voters in Canada.” But Mr. Johnston added that, after looking at everything, he found that “several leaked materials that raised legitimate questions turn out to have been misconstrued in some media reports, presumably because of the lack of this context.”At the end of March, a committee of Parliamentarians who had been cleared to review classified intelligence turned over its election interference report to the government. The censored, public version of its findings has yet to be released.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Salem Media Group, which co-produced the 2022 film, issued the apology to a Georgia man who was falsely depicted as stuffing a ballot box near Atlanta.The conservative media company Salem Media Group has apologized to a Georgia man who was falsely depicted as having committed election fraud in the film “2,000 Mules,” which Salem co-produced and released in 2022.The documentary, written and directed by the right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza, claimed that Democrats had conspired with nonprofit groups to rig the 2020 election in favor of President Biden by using “mules” who stuffed ballot boxes in swing states.More than a million people watched “2,000 Mules” in just the first two weeks after its release in May 2022, and the film grossed over $10 million. Its unfounded allegations became an article of faith for an untold number of Americans convinced that the election had been stolen. Five months later, Salem released a companion book.The film features surveillance video of the man from Georgia, Mark Andrews, as he places ballots into a drop box near Atlanta, along with voice-over commentary by Mr. D’Souza calling the action “a crime” and adding, “These are fraudulent votes.”Although Mr. Andrews’s face is blurred in the images, the film’s producers used unblurred versions of the same video to promote the film on a variety of conservative news outlets, including Tucker Carlson’s former show on Fox News and a show hosted by Charlie Kirk, a founder of Turning Point USA, and produced by Salem.Mr. Andrews sued Mr. D’Souza, along with Salem and two individuals associated with the right-wing election-monitoring group True the Vote, for defamation in October 2022. State investigators in Georgia have since found that Mr. Andrews committed no crime and that he had legally deposited the ballots for himself and several members of his family.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

After former President Donald J. Trump was found guilty, he and a number of conservative figures in the news media and lawmakers on the right have spread false and misleading claims about the Manhattan case.After former President Donald J. Trump was found guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, he instantly rejected the verdict and assailed the judge and criminal justice system.His loyalists in the conservative news media and Congress quickly followed suit, echoing his baseless assertions that he had fallen victim to a politically motivated sham trial.The display of unity reflected the extent of Mr. Trump’s hold over his base.The former president and his supporters have singled out the judge who presided over the case, denigrated the judicial system and distorted the circumstances of the charges against him and his subsequent conviction.Here’s a fact check of some of their claims.What Was Said“We had a conflicted judge, highly conflicted. There’s never been a more conflicted judge.”— Mr. Trump in a news conference on Friday at Trump Tower in ManhattanThis is exaggerated. For over a year, Mr. Trump and his allies have said Justice Juan M. Merchan should not preside over the case because of his daughter’s line of work. Loren Merchan, the daughter, served as the president of a digital campaign strategy agency that has done work for many prominent Democrats, including Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign.Experts in judicial ethics have said Ms. Merchan’s work is not sufficient grounds for recusal. When Mr. Trump’s legal team sought his recusal because of his daughter, Justice Merchan sought counsel from the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, which said it did not see any conflict of interest.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Taylor Swift was not at the White House to celebrate with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, but kicker Harrison Butker, who recently drew controversy for a commencement speech, attended.On Friday, President Biden urgently called for an end to the war in Gaza. He solemnly discussed the rule of law after former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal conviction. And he donned a shiny red helmet to the whoops and cheers of a pack of football players and fans.The visit to the White House by the Kansas City Chiefs to celebrate their second straight Super Bowl win gave the president a few moments of frivolity in a week replete with sobering events.“Winning back-to-back — I kind of like that,” Mr. Biden said, hinting at the tough re-election bid he faces in his rematch with Mr. Trump. He added, “When the doubters question if you can pull it off again, believe me, I know what that feels like.”The South Lawn celebration was a blip on the president’s schedule, squeezed between a meeting with the prime minister of Belgium and his weekend plans in Rehoboth Beach, Del., during a month with an endless string of campaign events. Yet, with some of the National Football League’s most famous names, it carried a certain celebrity wattage.Still, the spotlight was far dimmer than it could have been. Taylor Swift did not make the trip with her boyfriend, the star tight end Travis Kelce, as she was touring in Europe and had performed in Madrid on Thursday night.The White House had previously said it was up to the Chiefs whether to extend an invitation to the star musician, who has largely avoided embroiling herself in politics. She endorsed Mr. Biden in 2020, leading to speculation about whether she would do so again.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Many saw in the jury’s finding a rejection of themselves, of their values and even of democracy itself. The sense of grievance erupted as powerfully as the verdict itself.From the low hills of northwest Georgia to a veterans’ retreat in Alaska to suburban New Hampshire, the corners of conservative America resounded with anger over the New York jury’s declaration that former President Donald J. Trump was guilty.But their discontent was about more than the 34 felony counts that Mr. Trump was convicted on, which his supporters quickly dismissed as politically motivated.They saw in the jury’s finding a rejection of themselves, and the values they believed their nation should uphold. Broad swaths of liberal America may have found long-awaited justice in the trial’s outcome. But for many staunch Trump loyalists — people who for years have listened to and believed Mr. Trump’s baseless claims that the system is rigged against him, and them — the verdict on Thursday threatened to shatter their faith in democracy itself.“We are at that crossroads. The democracy that we have known and cherished in this nation is now threatened,” Franklin Graham, the evangelist, said in an interview from Alaska. “I’ve got 13 grandchildren. What kind of nation are we leaving them?”Echoing him was Marie Vast, 72, of West Palm Beach, Fla., near Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. “I know a lot of people who say they still believe in our government,” she said, “but when the Democrats can manipulate things this grossly, and use the legal system as a tool to get the outcome they want, the system isn’t working.”Among more than two dozen people interviewed across 10 states on Friday, the sentiments among conservatives were so strong that they echoed the worry and fear that many progressives described feeling after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade almost two years ago.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More