“We recently learned that surveillance videos used in the film may not have actually been correlated with the geolocation data,” said a statement quietly posted to D’Souza’s website on Monday.

“I now understand that the surveillance videos used in the film were characterized on the basis of inaccurate information provided to me and my team. If I had known then that the videos were not linked to geolocation data, I would have clarified this and produced and edited the film differently,” he added.

D’Souza’s note apologized to Mark Andrews, a Georgia man recorded on video footage that was used in the movie with his face blurred. In the original version of the film, D’Souza narrated the scene with Andrews and said, “What you are seeing is a crime. These are fraudulent votes.”

Despite D’Souza’s attempt to lay all the blame at the feet of True the Vote, this claim was the central premise of his movie and accompanying book.

Salem Media Group, which published the book and distributed the film version, previously apologized to Andrews and said the company would no longer distribute the book or film.

Georgia law enforcement agencies previously debunked the film’s allegations but the right-wing provocateurs—led by prominent figures like Trump—have touted the allegations and similar conspiracies for years.

D’Souza is a longtime conservative commentator and activist who made the transition to conspiracy theorist several years ago. He has written and directed eight movies since 2012 attacking Democrats and liberals. Among the films are 2016: Obama’s America, supposedly depicting the dystopia that would occur if President Barack Obama won reelection in 2012; Death of a Nation, which compared Trump to Abraham Lincoln; and the debunked tract 2000 Mules.

There was a gap in D’Souza’s filmmaking because in 2014 he pleaded guilty to federal charges of making illegal contributions to the Senate campaign for Wendy Long, the Republican nominee in New York’s 2012 Senate race. Despite D’Souza’s attempt to help, Long lost to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand by 46 percentage points.

D’Souza was later pardoned by Trump in 2018, reflecting Trump’s habit of delivering politically for figures who have lavished him with praise—similar to the FBI director nomination he recently offered to Trump fanfic writer Kash Patel.

The D’Souza saga is a microcosm of the right-wing media world and conservative culture in general, where utterly false and easily debunked claims are promoted for years on end, only to quietly be cast off when people are no longer paying attention.