It's hard enough to apply for college. It's even harder now that a web-based federal student-aid tool has been shut down entirely. What gives? Well, it's possible that a private investigator attempted to hack into the system by entering the last four digits of Donald Trump's social security number in order to pull in his financial information. TaxProfBlog describes this peculiar case:
The person accused of a 2016 attempt to use a web-based federal student-aid tool to illegally obtain taxpayer information is a Louisiana-based private investigator who used the tool to target then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, court records obtained by Diverse show.
The records allege that when Jordan Hamlett, 31, met FBI agents in the atrium of the Embassy Suites in Baton Rouge, he “immediately volunteered that he had committed the crime and he even sounded proud of what he had done.”
The records allege that Hamlett “unlawfully attempted to obtain Trump’s federal tax information from the U.S. Department of Education and IRS using the web application Federal Student Aid – Datashare.” The application enables students to more easily fill out the FAFSA — or Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
By using the tool students could have their IRS data automatically populated into the FAFSA. The Federal Student Aid — Datashare (FSA-D) application was shut down in March 2017 due to security concerns. FSA-D is the IRS’s internal name for the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, better known as the IRS DRT.
Pepperdine law professor Paul Caron asks, since Jordan Hamlet is a private investigator, "who hired him?" A former Department of Education official from the Obama administration asked, "Do you think the whole DRT problem might have just been folks trying to get Trump’s tax records?” Plus, isn't it odd that this FAFSA tool, which had been described as the “cornerstone of federal financial aid simplification" disappeared without very many media outlets even mentioning it?
There are more questions than answers at this point, perhaps because court documents pertaining to United States of America versus Jordan Hamlett were previously sealed. Hamlett might be less proud of his illegal activity now that he's been charged with "false representation of a social security number, a felony." Stay tuned to see whether the mystery of "who hired Justin Hamlett" comes out in the Louisiana case. One thing's for sure. When it comes to Donald Trump's tax returns, there's no shortage of drama and intrigue.
h/t TaxProfBlog
Image Credit: Christoph Scholz
