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Following the arrest of Cesar Sayoc on charges that he sent mail bombs to prominent Democrats and anti-Trump media figures, the pro-Trump conspiracy contingent attempted to paint the suspect as a Democrat who posed as a Republican — innuendo suggesting that Sayoc’s true goals were to inflict political damage on President Donald Trump and his agenda. Representative of this claim was a 26 October 2018 Facebook meme that labeled Sayoc as a Democrat posing as a Republican and asserted he had recently put his infamous pro-Trump stickers on his van, describing those (false) claims as suspicious: No evidence documents that Sayoc was a lifelong Democrat — all signs point to his being relatively apolitical until 2015, although it appeared he attempted to register as a Republican twice in October 2012. And Sayoc’s van had sported pro-Trump stickers since at least 2017, and it had contained pro-Trump material since at least 2015. Although news reports have stated that Sayoc’s relatives are Democrats, Cesar Sayoc has never been registered as a Democrat. His only known voter registration listed his political affiliation as the Florida Republican Party, and it was filed two weeks before Trump won that state’s GOP primary. Additionally a public records request yielded documents indicating that Sayoc had attempted to register as a Republican twice in October 2012 but failed to complete his application in both cases: According to news reports, most people who interacted with Sayoc prior to 2015 stated he did not appear to be overtly political. Ronald Lowy, a lawyer for the Sayoc family who represented Cesar during a 2002 case in which he threatened to bomb an electric company over a bill he disputed, told the New York Times that Sayoc seemed to have no outspoken partisan views during the 2002 case. Daniel Lurvey represented Sayoc against theft charges in 2013 and 2014, and he told the Washington Examiner that he could not recall Sayoc's ever discussing politics. Instead, it appears that Sayoc’s chief interests during this time were bodybuilding and wrestling. The pattern appeared to have changed by 2015. Sayoc showed up at a Brevard College alumni event for his soccer team that year, where former team members stated that he quickly made clear he was a fanatical supporter of Mr. Trump, and bombarded them with racist and misogynist conspiracy theories. Since that time, Sayoc had been an outspoken and fanatical supporter of Donald Trump and an equally outspoken opponent of Democrats online: In 2015, as part of a likely effort to make a false insurance claim, Sayoc reported to police that $45,000 worth of suits and costumes he needed for his business were stolen from his van. According to the New York Times, the police report noted that of the 139 pieces he said were taken, 11 were the president’s clothing brand. It is unclear exactly when the outside of Sayoc's van was first festooned with pro-Trump political stickers, but the van had been a common sighting in the South Florida region since at least New Year's Eve of 2017, as reported by the Sun Sentinel: Assertions that Cesar Sayoc had lifelong Democratic political leanings or that his van was covered in stickers only immediately before his mail-bombing attempts do not hold up to any level of scrutiny.
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