When a government document inexplicably appeared earlier this week in the most high-profile federal court case, it had all the characteristics of another blockbuster plot in the Justice Department’s investigation into sensitive information housed at the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump.
The memo claimed to be from the U.S. Treasury Department, stated that the agency had taken sensitive papers connected to last month’s search at Mar-a-Lago, and included an order for CNN to safeguard “leaked tax records.”
Thursday night, the document remained on the court’s docket, despite the fact that it is an obvious forgery. The document may have come from a serial forger incarcerated at a federal prison complex in North Carolina, according to an Associated Press review of dozens of court records and interviews.
The event also implies that the court clerk was easily duped into believing that the paper was authentic, resulting in the document being placed on the public docket for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant case. It also illustrates the fragility of the U.S. judicial system and raises doubts regarding the court’s review of purportedly official papers.
The document originally surfaced on the court’s docket late on Monday afternoon, labeled “MOTION to Intervene by U.S. Treasury Department.”
“The U.S. Department of Treasury, through the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Marshals Service, has arrested Seized Federal Securities containing sensitive documents that are subject to the Defendant Sealed Search Warrant issued by the F.B.I.”
It referenced a federal statute regarding the collection of financial records during federal investigations. The document also contained two purported warrants, one delivered to CNN in Atlanta and the other to a towing company in Michigan.
These purported warrants, however, are identical to documents filed in another case brought by an inmate at the North Carolina prison medical center in Butner in federal court in Georgia. The complaint was dismissed, as were the man’s numerous previous frivolous claims filed from his prison cell.
The man has been incarcerated for several years since he was deemed incompetent to stand trial following his arrest for building a fake bomb outside the Guardian Building, a Detroit skyscraper. A review of court documents reveals that he has filed numerous lawsuits and impersonated the Treasury Department, a federal trustee, and a Justice Department attorney since his detention.
In the Georgia case, the man alleged that Trump and others “obtained’millions of unredacted classified tax returns and other sensitive financial data, bank records, and accounts of banking and tax transactions of several million Americans and federal government agencies,’” according to court documents.
The judge in that case described the plaintiff’s lawsuit as “fanatical” and “delusional,” stating that there was no way to “distinguish any cognizable claim” from the documents’ incoherence.
According to two AP sources, the man has regularly impersonated federal authorities in court documents and filed tax liens on judges using bogus documentation. Due to his experience as a forger, the Bureau of Prisons is required to conduct a more thorough review of his letters.
It is unknown how the fraudulent motion and warrants made their way to the court clerk’s office at the courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Included in the folder is a photocopy of an envelope bearing the printed return address of the Treasury Department’s headquarters in Washington. However, a postmark and tracking number on the envelope indicate that it was mailed on September 9 from Clinton Township, Michigan, the inmate’s hometown.
Because he has a documented history of mental illness and has not been charged with a felony linked to the filing, the Associated Press will not identify the inmate by name.
The court in the Georgia case noted, “There is simply no indication that he has any authority to act on behalf of the United States.”
Despite the glaring warning indicators, including a Georgia case number stamp on the counterfeit warrants, the application made it onto the docket.
Justice Department and Treasury Department spokespeople declined to comment. When asked on the record if the paper was fake and why the government had not corrected it, they declined to respond.
The court clerk’s office and the magistrate judge in charge of the search warrant case did not reply to requests for comment.