This is exactly the kind of offbeat, one of a kind, news story that can be spun into conspiracy theory and that is what Donald Trump is doing with it. The Associated Press is reporting that a document, purportedly from the U.S. Treasury Department, claimed that Treasury had seized certain documents “related to last month’s search at Mar-a-Lago and included a warrant ordering CNN to preserve ‘leaked tax records.'” The document is a fake. It was introduced into the court system by mail, and it came from a serial forger currently incarcerated in North Carolina.
The man has repeatedly impersonated federal officials in court records and has placed tax liens on judges using his false paperwork, two people familiar with the matter told the AP. Because of his history as a forger, his mail is supposed to be subjected to additional scrutiny from the Bureau of Prisons.
It’s unclear how the documents — the fake motion and the phony warrants — ended up at the court clerk’s office at the courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida.
A photocopy of an envelope, included in the filing, shows it was sent to the court with a printed return address of the Treasury Department’s headquarters in Washington. But a postmark shows a Michigan ZIP code, and a tracking number on the envelope shows it was mailed Sept. 9 from Clinton Township, Michigan, the inmate’s hometown.
The AP is not identifying the inmate by name because he has a documented history of mental illness and has not been charged with a crime related to the filing.
But naturally Trump is running for his life with the story. It’s up on Truth Social, which is where I found it.
The document first appeared on the court’s docket late Monday afternoon and was marked as a “MOTION to Intervene by U.S. Department of the Treasury.”
The document, sprinkled with spelling and syntax errors, read, “The U.S. Department of Treasury through the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals Service have arrested Seized Federal Securities containing sensitive documents which are subject to the Defendant Sealed Search Warrant by the F.B.I. arrest.”
It cited a federal statute for collecting financial records in federal investigations. The document also included the two supposed warrants, one that claimed to be sent to CNN in Atlanta and another to a towing company in Michigan.
Those supposed warrants, though, are identical to paperwork filed in another case in federal court in Georgia brought by an inmate at the prison medical center in Butner, North Carolina. The case was thrown out, as were the array of other frivolous lawsuits the man has filed from his prison cell.
And here’s the bottom line.
The incident also suggests that the court clerk was easily tricked into believing it was real, landing the document on the public docket in the Mar-a-Lago search warrant case. It also highlights the vulnerability of the U.S. court system and raises questions about the court’s vetting of documents that purport to be official records.
The good news is that the document didn’t stay there long. It was incompetently done and stood out like a sore thumb and it was easily discovered as fake. But all that will be ignored. Trump has fodder now for a claim of “fake documents,” being filed in connection with the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, “fake news,” and a conspiracy against him. That’s right up his alley. That’s what he wants and needs.
I wonder if he’ll talk about this in Ohio tonight at his J.D. Vance rally? This is perfect MAGA red meat.
It’s a known fact, the more Trump bumps around B.S. at his newer rants, the deeper his tail falls into the Pig Crap at the old corral … turn-arounds on his pronouncements, usually contain facts about his sources and how infantile he is to believe and repeat them …
His excitement of finding this gem to exploit, might become the stretch of imagination he cannot use or rework in the Maga Mob’s minds, it will take a master’s touch to re-arrange the facts and make this a quality slap at the FBI/DOJ … Trump’s own writing/reading skills may be his un-doing … a huge laugh-a-thon from the Democrats might twist another knob on Trump’s kitchen stove … his support team is going away SO FAST, the wind storm they create may just blow Trump’s other brain cell’s fuse …
I want to see what he does to spin this at the Ohio rally tonight. Unless I miss my guess, this is too good of a gem for him not to publicize.
“Trump is running for his life with the story.” But I really wonder why you run with this story? Will we be hearing about the Cross Fire Hurricane papers that they were actually looking for? Well, you’ll be writing about them. tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock.
I read about this earlier this week. I don’t remember which outlet wrote about it but it was in “news” stories on my browser’s home page. Anyway, it didn’t have as much details as you’ve given but the basics were there. A mentally ill person locked up in Butner (an hour or so from where I live) managed get a bogus filing on the docket in the same court where the Mar A Lago crap is going on. It wound up being recognized as bogus and the culprit had been identified (but not named because he’s mentally ill) but the article noted the lawsuit was riddled with mistakes. Misspelling, syntax errors ect.
I’d started reading it in the first place to learn how long it took to realize it was bogus & toss it out, but mostly to see if there was any info. on how it passed initial muster and got on the docket in the first place. With lots of dumbass mistakes like bad spelling and crappy grammar you’d think the clerk might have done a little checking, because later someone did and that’s why it got tossed so quickly. But THEN I realized why some clerk processing a stack of daily filings might be fooled. TRUMP’S own lawyers, including some names you’re familiar with have made filings in federal court that have had these kind of mistakes. Get it? It’s common enough that some clerk at the bottom of the food chain with lots to do and little time to do it thought “More Trump stuff. Look at how badly this is drafted but it’s Trump related and he has cheap-ass lawyers” and simply slammed that big ole “Received/Accepted on (date/time) stamp on it and put it on the docket! That my friends is how low things have gotten. Trump not only is famous for not paying lawyers, but having lawyers so crappy it’s EXPECTED their filings will be filled with errors! Even if it was supposedly from Treasury and not Trump’s lawyers I can see how a hurried clerk would conflate the two given the hoopla going on in that court these days.
there are several docs filed by one Raj K Patel, which have nothing to do with the cas and a lot to do with the loose screws inside his brain.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64911367/trump-v-united-states/
It looks like our “courts” are a jobs program for the mentally diminished…..
That’s how we got cops with remedial intelligence having qualified immunity.
Our lazy incompetent “judges” are simply overworked and need more time for seeking kickbacks.
That why they have that “contempt” law that the sissies hide behind….
If the inmate is in a prison in North Carolina – how was the phony document mailed from Michigan? If the inmate is mentally ill, and could not stand trial for the crime of attempting to blow up a building, how was he able to forge a document that fooled the court clerk in the highest profile case in recent American history where the validity of documents themselves is at issue? Don’t blame us for conspiracy theories, read what’s written here and try to make sense of it. Something is off about this whole story. Why was this dropped on Saturday- Sunday morning and why is no one from the DOJ saying anything about it? Why are there no names attached to anyone involved – the forger, the court clerk, etc. Where is the document itself? Could it be that as Raymond Dearie starts looking at these documents next week someone realized this document would raise a red flag should he come across it? It sure looks like someone is moving things around on the weekend. Remember, Clinesmith was caught lying to the FISA court to surveil Carter Page. Dearie was the judge. If Dearie comes across a document like this in his examination things are not gonna go well for the Feds. So they better hope this far-fetched-sounding story about a mentally-ill forger in jail in NC mailing a fake document to FLA from MI is true.
Getting help to get someone from Michigan to get the suit filed isn’t a matter of rocket scientist level thinking. I doubt his mail is closely monitored and even if so he’s been where he is for a while now. Getting a fellow inmate to pass something along for him, someone who could slip something to a friend or relative during a visit wouldn’t be difficult. This is far from the first time the dude had made bogus filings. So go find a different tree to bark up.
Wow, you figured it out. So the mentally ill guy, who couldn’t even stand trial due to his mental illness, forged the document while in prison in North Carolina, then mailed it to someone in his hometown – another mentally ill person maybe – to then forward to Florida where a court clerk eventually it mistook as one of the documents taken in the Mar-A-Lago raid, right? Does that make sense to you? And how do you know this isn’t the first time he did this? We don’t even know his name? You don’t anything about him except this crazy story that doesn’t make one bit of sense. Because if it did – the guy in prison as well as his friend would be charged with wire fraud and it would public record – so until that happens, my guess at what this is all about is as good as anyone’s. And here it is – this fake document was planted by the feds themselves – that’s why no is talking about it and that’s this is the last you’ll hear about. They yanked as soon as Dearie was named Special Master. Convince me I’m wrong.
“A mentally ill convicted forger” – um actually as the story goes, he’s not in prison for forgery, he’s in prison for attempting to blow up a skyscraper. And we won’t ever know who he is because he’s “mentally ill”. How convenient. The whole story stinks!
Did they finally lock up Roger q.Hyde, clinton twp. “attorney”, forger and hack?
The bigger question is how did this story reach the AP and CBS and then within hours disappear without being picked up anywhere else? And here being used as a Trump hit piece like he actually had something to do with it by the mere mentioning of it.
Something is entirely weird about the whole thing. So weird I doubt you ever hear about it again.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.617854/gov.uscourts.flsd.617854.128.1_1.pdf
Here is the document in question. Have a look at it. And then tell me how a “mentally ill inmate” in Butner Prison in North Carolina – one whose crime of attempting to blow up the Guardian Bldg in Detroit is unverifiable – had the means to forge this document (with stamps and signatures) behind bars – forget the syntax this guy had the proper form itself (how did he get it) – then send it to someone in another state – Michigan – even as the mentally ill inmate’s mail was monitored since he apparently had done something similar before – however, he was successful in mailing this document to someone in Michigan who had to handle it themselves to place it in an envelope – then mailed it to the courts in Florida to include it on the docket of the Mar-A-Lago seized raid documents – which is by far the most heavily surveilled cache of documents in recent US history related to a former President.
Are you kidding me?
So you say the mentally ill inmate has done this before in Georgia? Can’t find it. There’s no record of that and no names, untraceable, unverifiable. The man is a ghost.
The story is a fraud, though someone did submit this document into the Mar-A-Lago raid documents, who and how? We’ll never know.