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In October 2018, several suspicious packages were sent to high-profile Democratic party figures including former president Barack Obama, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Joe Biden, and liberal financier George Soros Law enforcement officials said the packages contained suspected explosive devices, although none of them detonated or caused any physical injury. The episode prompted widespread concern and increased political tensions in the lead-up to the 6 November midterm elections, especially after authorities in Florida arrested 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, a supporter of President Donald Trump, in connection with the packages. The mailings also engendered conspiracy theories, chief among them the notion that the sending of the suspicious packages, the contents of many of which had the appearance of pipe bombs, was a false flag operation, orchestrated by liberals to stoke outrage against President Donald Trump on account of his past violent rhetoric. Against this background, a viral meme emerged on 24 October which some promoters cited as evidence that the pipe bomb mailings were a politically-motivated hoax rather than a genuine effort to harm or intimidate perceived liberal Democrats: This message reappeared on multiple different Facebook accounts, in many cases prompting comments which held that the pipe bombs were a hoax or news reports about the mail terror campaign were fake. The logic of this argument went as follows: Background On 22 October, a suspected explosive device was found in a package in the mailbox outside the suburban New York home of George Soros, a billionaire financier and philanthropist who is a frequent target of right-wing attacks and misinformation for his funding of liberal and progressive causes. Later, federal officials told the New York Times that the package was likely hand-delivered rather than being sent through the mail. Two days later, the U.S. Secret Service intercepted two potential explosive devices which had been addressed to the upstate New York home of Hillary and Bill Clinton, and the Washington, D.C., home of the Obama family, respectively. In a statement about those mailings, the Secret Service wrote: While it's true that some initial reports stated that these packages had been found at or delivered to the homes, the vast majority of news articles correctly stipulated that the packages had been sent to residential addresses but had been intercepted by the Secret Service before arrival. So it's worth noting that the misinformation the meme sought to point out was largely absent from news reports, which were overwhelmingly careful to point out, even in headlines, that the suspicious packages had never made it to the homes of the Obamas or Clintons. The Secret Service does appear to have a policy of not allowing the USPS or other companies to directly deliver mail to anyone who is under the agency's protection, such as the Obama and Clinton families, though we were unable to confirm this definitively. The Secret Service's press release on the packages referred to routine mail screening procedures and mentioned that neither the Obamas nor Clintons were at risk of receiving them. This information strongly suggested that postal workers do not, as a matter of policy, directly deliver mail addressed to Secret Service protectees. We asked the agency to confirm this point, but a spokesperson told us: For operational security reasons, the Secret Service does not discuss specifically nor in general terms the means and methods we utilize to carry out our protective responsibilities. Likewise, a spokesperson for USPS responded to our queries by writing: We are not able to address your specific questions. We also asked UPS and FedEx to clarify whether their employees ever directly deliver mail to Secret Service protectees, and a spokesperson for the former told us that UPS has layered security measures, but we do not disclose them to maintain their effectiveness. We did not receive a substantive response from FedEx. On 24 October, a man who identified himself as an employee of FedEx and a former employee of USPS called into the Roger and JP Show on the Florida radio station WHPT (The Bone), and his contribution to the show can be heard here (starting around the five-minute mark). Roughly speaking, he told the hosts that the Secret Service always examines packages addressed to a celebrity, like Barack Obama or Donald Trump. By this it appears he meant that the Secret Service always examines packages addressed to someone under its protection. As we have outlined, this appears to be true. This does not mean that reporting about the packages, in general, was false, or that the episode constituted a hoax or a false flag operation. In a press conference on 26 October, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray emphasized that the 13 devices sent to various intended recipients were not hoax devices: As of 26 October, suspect Cesar Sayoc, who frequently posted online about his support for President Trump and distaste for Democrats, CNN and George Soros, had not given a public explanation for his alleged actions. However, no evidence supports the theory that the mail bomb campaign was part of a hoax or false flag conspiracy intended to stoke outrage among opponents of President Trump and the Republican party, to the benefit of Democrats in the mideterm elections. The viral meme which quotes a former USPS worker has been presented on social media as proof that the news media was deliberately misleading the public about the delivery of packages to the homes of the Obamas and Clintons, and therefore evidence that the entire episode constituted a false flag operation. But this was not the case, not least because the vast majority of news articles accurately reported the fact that the Secret Service intercepted the explosive devices before they arrived at their intended destinations.
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