The Louisiana GOP has filed a complaint with the state’s Attorney General after Eventbrite cancelled payments for an event featuring filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza last week, citing rules on its platform against “misinformation.” The Republican Party says the last-minute decision to de-platform the event and refund all who had paid or donated to attend cost it $4,400.

“We do not permit events, content or creators that share or promote potentially harmful misinformation,” reads an email sent to event organizers by Eventbrite on the day before the event. “In this instance, we have determined that your event violates our Community Guidelines and is therefore not permitted on the Eventbrite platform. As a result, your event listing has been removed and any paid orders have been refunded.”

D’Souza was appearing at a breakfast as a part of a two-day “Victory 2022” gathering at the CajunDome in Lafayette put on by Republicans. The event cost attendees $45 each to attend, and was to involve a screening and discussion of his film “2,000 Mules,” which claims to identify fraud in the 2020 election. Those claims have been overwhelmingly debunked, but remain very popular with many supporters of former President Donald Trump. D’Souza pleaded guilty in 2014 to felony campaign finance violations, but received a pardon from Trump in 2018.

ticketflipping provides valuable tools for ticket resale professionals

Eventbrite has reportedly been used regularly by Louisiana’s GOP for past events, but the organization didn’t even realize the funds had been returned to consumers until after the event had happened.

“They just undid everything on the Dinesh D’Souza breakfast,” state GOP chairman Louis Gurvich told the Daily Advertiser. “That’s the one where they had $4,400 collected in donations, fees for the (breakfast) … that they just sent back to the folks who had paid for the breakfast, so we have not received any of the money.”

Gurvich told The Daily Advertiser that he believed the cancellation was politically motivated and the late timing was deliberate on the part of Eventbrite.

“I have to feel like there’s a malicious intent here,” Gurvich said. “We’re not going to recover all the fees. We may recover most, but we’re not going to recover the time and effort it’s going to take to recover the donations … that had already been given to us and then were basically taken away.”

Eventbrite has not publicly commented on the cancellation, outside of the email sent to the organizers at the time the decision was made.