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Prosecutors in Milwaukee brought charges on Tuesday against a local man who tried to frame an immigrant for ostensibly plotting an attack on Donald Trump.
As my colleague Steve Benen noted earlier this week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others in the Trump administration recently promoted a claim that an undocumented man named Ramon Morales Reyes addressed a letter to federal agencies in which he expressed anger over Trump’s mass deportation plans and threatened to shoot the president in the head.
That claim ran counter to some law enforcement officials’ assessment of some of the evidence, including investigators having reportedly determined that the handwriting in the letter didn’t match Morales Reyes’ — and that, according to his attorney, he doesn’t speak English fluently enough to have written it.
Now, it appears that the plot, as they say, has thickened. According to NBC News:
Demetric D. Scott, 52, allegedly sent letters to state and federal officials claiming to be from Ramón Morales Reyes that threatened to kill President Donald Trump and bashed immigration policies. He was charged in a Milwaukee court on Monday with felony witness intimidation, identity theft and two counts of bail jumping. [...] On May 30, a Milwaukee police detective conducted an interview with Scott and he admitted to writing the letters and addressing the envelopes himself, authorities said, adding that he said he wrote them seeking ‘freedom.’
This sounds like a harrowing scenario for Morales Reyes, who reportedly works as a dishwasher in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife and three children. The Associated Press reported he remained in custody as of Tuesday, as his application is being processed for a so-called U visa (a visa reserved for undocumented people who are victims of certain crimes). Morales Reyes’ attorney told the AP they’re seeking other ways to keep him in the U.S. due to the backlog of U visa applications. Morales Reyes had an immigration hearing scheduled for Wednesday that was postponed to next week.
But even if he is released from custody, one wonders what kind of web of conspiracies might await for him outside. The White House and some of its top officials tried to portray him as a violent enemy of the president, despite evidence to the contrary. The Trump administration and its allies certainly did him no favors by credulously promoting the false narrative that Morales Reyes was behind the letter, portraying him as responsible for the threats on Trump’s life. And last I checked, they have made no effort to clear his name since charges were filed against the man who admitted to framing him.
In response to questions about whether DHS intended to notify the public that Morales Reyes had been framed, the department told MSNBC that he is “no longer under investigation for threats against the president” but called him a “criminal illegal alien” and said it intends to pursue removal proceedings, citing Morales Reyes having been previously arrested. Morales Reyes’ attorneys did not immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment.