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.”
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.
The fact that Hamlett is described in court records as a private investigator raised questions about his possible motive.
“Do you think the whole DRT problem might have just been folks trying to get Trump’s tax records?” wondered one former Department of Education official from the Obama administration, speaking in reference to unheeded requests for Trump to disclose his tax returns.
Others in Washington say inquiries about the matter are met with silence.
