After his election defeat in 2020, Donald Trump peddled hysterical lies about election fraud to anyone who’d listen. The outgoing president’s campaign against reality was incredibly effective, not only in convincing his followers to send his political operation millions of dollars, but also in convincing Republicans nationwide that he’d secretly won the race he’d lost.

But in court, Trump’s lawyers were careful not to repeat his lies. Peddling brazen falsehoods at campaign rallies and through the media is damaging to democracy, but it can be done with impunity. Trump realized he could deceive with impunity, mindful that there would be no consequences.

His attorneys, however, understood that lying to a judge can bring sanctions, penalties, and possible disbarment — which is why Trump’s legal team was more circumspect when it came to their client’s most ridiculous election conspiracy theories.

All of this came to mind reading the Associated Press’ report on a group called True the Vote, and its striking new concession.

A conservative group has told a Georgia judge that it doesn’t have evidence to support its claims of illegal ballot stuffing during the 2020 general election and a runoff two months later.

If the organization True the Vote sounds at all familiar to national audiences, it’s probably because its work was featured in a conspiratorial documentary film called “2,000 Mules.” Trump and others championing his Big Lie about the presidential election have repeatedly pointed to Dinesh D’Souza’s movie as proof of systemic wrongdoing in the 2020 race.

In reality, of course, “2,000 Mules” has been thoroughly discredited as laughable nonsense.

Nevertheless, the group whose work served as the basis for the documentary claimed that it had obtained “a detailed account of coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta” in the 2020 cycle. True the Vote would not, however, share its purported evidence with state investigators.

So, the Georgia State Election Board obtained a subpoena, and a state judge ultimately ordered the organization to provide the evidence it had collected.

The AP report added, “In their written response, attorneys for True the Vote said the group had no names or other documentary evidence to share.”

Oh.

In other words, after Trump and other Republicans clung to True the Vote’s claims like a life-preserver, insisting the group’s findings were the only proof they needed, the matter ended in court — where lies come with consequences.

“If you look at True the Vote,” Trump declared last year, “they found millions of votes on camera, on government cameras, where they were stuffing ballot boxes.”

According to True the Vote’s attorneys, no such evidence exists.

I don’t seriously believe that all — or any — of the Republicans who celebrated the group’s claims will suddenly reverse course on their election conspiracy theories, but for those interested in reality, these latest developments should be seen as definitive.