Thread by @ms_haleyjane

Some interesting details about the case involving former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg—from whom the allegations against Matt Gaetz originated:

Greenberg, now serving an 11-year sentence for various public corruption crimes, facilitated part of his embezzlement scheme through Government Blockchain Systems, LLC, a company he co-founded in July 2019 with then-22-year-old Samuel Armes.

Armes had recently graduated from FSU, where he participated in a training program that included a stint in Jerusalem to learn Arabic so he could “maybe be an informant” in the Middle East. He described the program as having “groomed” him for intelligence roles with agencies like the CIA or FBI—a background he attributes to his involvement in cryptocurrency. The program aimed to prepare him to “become a member of the Feds” upon graduation, which is when he reportedly first met and became involved with Greenberg in 2018.

Shortly after, in early 2019, Greenberg hired Armes to set up a bitcoin operation at the Seminole County Tax Office—a venture that later became part of Greenberg’s legal troubles. This operation, in part, contributed to the criminal charges against Greenberg and, by extension, the allegations against Gaetz.

These allegations, originating from Greenberg—who is known for his pattern of making fraudulent claims—came as part of his bid to secure a reduced prison sentence.

Here is Armes discussing how he was “groomed” for intelligence roles before his involvement with Greenberg:

The Greenberg case, however, isn’t the only one Armes is tied to with the potential for significant political fallout, particularly targeting those in the MAGA sphere.

In the January 6 Seditious Conspiracy case against the Proud Boys, Armes was the author of what later became known as the “1776 Returns” document. Prosecutors used the document to bolster their claims of the conspiracy’s existence—despite lacking evidence that any of the defendants had ever read or even opened it.

Armes later told the January 6 committee that he drafted the document as a result of his background at USF, where he participated in numerous “wargaming exercises.” According to Armes, this training, along with inspiration from a separate August 2020 publication by the Transition Integrity Project, led him to “tinker with a Google document,” envisioning what could happen in a “worst-case scenario.”

Armes then shared the document with Erika Flores, described as an “interested friend” and “ally from the cryptocurrency world,” who then sent it to Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

While Armes denies any further involvement with the document after passing it to Flores—claiming she “took [his] ideas as an inspiration, and her or some group of people then turned it into ‘1776 Returns’”—Flores testified to the January 6 committee that Armes was the sole author of “1776 Returns” and had asked her to send it to Tarrio.

Neither Armes nor Flores have faced criminal charges related to January 6.

Armes has also not been charged in connection with the Greenberg case. Court documents do not explicitly name him but reference “the other individual” who, alongside Greenberg, managed the blockchain company through which part of Greenberg’s criminal activities were conducted. The documents describe this individual’s involvement as “short-lived,” ending after a September 2019 Orlando Sentinel article about Government Blockchain Systems, the entity Greenberg co-founded with Armes in July 2019.

“In response to that publicity, [Armes] was removed from the entity.”

Wonder why.