Two individuals part of a military advocacy organization’s 100,000-plus clients received burnt envelopes in the mail this past weekend, causing concerns about whether the incidents were coincidences or part of a broader, orchestrated attack on the outspoken group.
Images of the burnt envelopes, received this past weekend and shared exclusively with Military.com, reveal how a man in Florida and a woman in West Virginia received the letters as part of a routine donation mailer from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, known as MRFF. The paper envelopes were seared with similar patterns and delivered thousands of miles away, hours apart, from one other by the U.S. Postal Service.
MRFF became privy to the letters when both individuals, who spoke with Military.com on the condition of anonymity due to potential fears about their safety, sent emails to the organization this past weekend. The male is not a military veteran but was a former federal government employee. The female is a former U.S. Army staff sergeant. Both letters were delivered on Saturday, May 23.
The emails written by both individuals, and shared in full with Military.com, were sent to MRFF to make the organization aware of what happened, as well as to see if any other clients—roughly 95% of which are Christian—received similar correspondence. MRFF’s client base includes over 100,000 military members, civilian personnel and veterans.
“Pretty suspicious – smell’s charred and clearly burned to the letter inside,” the man wrote in the email. “Will keep it unopened for whatever investigation by the postal inspectors, FBI or others. Serious stuff. I have supported MRFF since its inception, as a donor and as a member of the advisory board.”
Under the assumption that this is not coincidental, this is pretty unacceptable. Let me know how to proceed. I really want this investigated fully. It abridges my rights and is clearly a threat to me.
Two photos were attached to the email: one showing the charred letter with the clear MRFF label on the front of the envelope, and the other showing that the letter was placed by USPS in a plastic bag with an apology for the condition of said letter.
The email scribed by the Army veteran is similar in nature, warning of “smells of burned paper, with the burn going all the way through the papers.”
“I immediately sensed the urgency of reporting this to you as well as my local USPS and law enforcement, as I have supported your organization for years, know it to be the most effective tool we have as Americans to fight not just Christian Nationalism but all prejudices in the military,” the woman wrote. “I also know you receive threats, ongoing, and likely much more dangerous than this.”
She added: “I will support your work no matter what happens and know what you do is of the utmost importance. I am outraged, as a US Army Veteran, that this could happen to you, through MY personal USPS mailbox. I’m hoping this is investigated to the fullest extent, and hope the best for you (and all of us) going forward.”
Military.com reached out to USPS plus state police in both Florida and West Virginia to find out if they were aware of the incidents, seemingly connected in nature, and whether investigations would ensue.
A local police department told Military.com it was not aware of the incident but planned to forward the matter to its criminal division.
‘Concerned For My Family’
Military.com spoke exclusively with both individuals on background on Sunday, after they received and reported the letters to MRFF.
The male said that when he received the letter, he immediately called MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein—someone he has known for decades—to make him aware of the incident. That’s when he found out that the other individual numerous states away had the same thing happen to her.
“That upset me,” the man told Military.com. “I understand if the Post Office makes a mistake on something. I’ve received mangled mail before, right?
“But when other people who are either donors or advisory board members or whatever of a foundation under attack by what I would, I guess, best describe as a cult of fanatical religious folks who have shown that they are willing to do violence—when that happens, I get concerned, I get concerned for my family.”
He said that he was planning on filing a police report with local law enforcement on Monday, which was Memorial Day, and then reach out on Tuesday to USPS.
The woman told Military.com that she’s been an MRFF client for 4 or 5 years, saying she initially didn’t think much of the burned letter.
“I’m sort of guilty of always downplaying things,” she said. “I don’t know why I would do that because my first thought was, oh, this is like a design on the envelope. … It probably just went over my head for that moment. I didn’t think that much of it.”
Then, she began to think about other nefarious things people have done to harm or intimidate others through mail delivery, such as anthrax. When she found out the man had received similar treatment within a couple of hours of her, the situation seemed fishy.
[The incidents] are definitely related. It’s the same exact pattern of burning—some but not all—at the top, so that you can actually see that there’s a letter in there. And part of the letter was also burned, and the return envelope.
Her letter also has what she described as a “liquid stain,” seen in the photo, which she believes would not have just randomly occurred when USPS packaged bulk mailings to go out for delivery.
“It doesn’t look like a shoe print, it doesn’t look like a tread,” she added. “I can’t even tell what the pattern would be.”
She described feeling more “vulnerable” than frightened, wondering how nobody at USPS saw the letter was tampered with before being delivered. She also wondered why the man in Florida received his letter in a plastic bag while she did not, considering the circumstances.
“That’s the kind of rattling noise that you feel in your own head and heart when you realize, well, yeah, this probably is burnt paper, but I don’t know that,” she said. “And the next time I see something like this, I would definitely panic a lot sooner than I did.
“And panic is good. That’s a productive, constructive response. I did not do that until after I realized that there was another one out there.”
She planned to file reports with both law enforcement and state police, as well as with USPS.”
‘New Territory of Intimidation’
MRFF has been in existence for more than 20 years. Incidents like these are not the first Weinstein and other officials have seen, though the group’s more recent attention has perked their ears perhaps more than usual.
Military.com previously reported how the group drew widespread attention in the infancy of the Iran War, when it logged more than 200 complaints across 50 military installations of non-commissioned officers purportedly being told that the war was part of God’s plan and that President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”
That attention may be related to these two new incidents, Weinstein said.
“Over the course of our two-plus decades of intensive, civil rights activism fighting Christian nationalism in the United States Armed Forces, my family, myself and our foundation and staff have long been the recipients of daily actions constituting wretched threats and harassment,” Weinstein told Military.com, referencing how he has long had robust security due to being consistently harassed and targeted by opponents and political adversaries.
The Florida man who has known Weinstein dating back to the 1980s said he now understands how the MRFF founder feels on a daily basis, saying that he’s had to constantly deflect proverbial “arrows” shot in his direction. Military.com has reported how Weinstein hired bodyguards and has multiple canines for security purposes, as past incidents have included death threats and feces rubbed on his own property.
Weinstein said the organization, in existence since 2005, understands “this type of tyrannical oppression comes with the territory and with the successes we continue to have in forcing the U.S. Armed Forces to adhere to the First Amendment’s mandatory separation of church and state.”
“However, the horrific facts of what has just happened here seemingly opens a new territory of monstrous, malignant intimidation against MRFF and its supporters,” he added. “This is the very first time we have suffered an apparent threat as specifically egregious and grotesque as this one where at least two recipients of our critical mid-year MRFF donation appeal—in very different parts of the country—have received their appeal envelope packages which have literally been burned all the way through and smelling of smoke when they were received by their panicked recipients.”
MRFF suspects that other MRFF donor appeal package recipients may also have had their envelope packages burned but may not have reported it to MRFF.
As of Monday evening, Military.com was not made aware of any additional incidents.
“MRFF now calls upon the USPS to aggressively, expeditiously, comprehensively and transparently investigate this horrific matter to determine the how, why, when, where and what of it all,” Weinstein said. “The USPS must publicly report its findings to the American people as swiftly as possible.
“This apparent cowardly and criminal attempt to blatantly intimidate MRFF and MRFF’s donor base, by burning our USPS-mailed request packages for support, will never stop our foundation’s civil rights battles.”
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