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Our Ed Pilkington is in Charlotte North Carolina where Trump supporters have been lining up all day in a driving rain to see the president speak at a midterm campaign rally this evening. The attitude among the crowd there regarding today’s arrest? Paranoia over the whole episode being a hoax or “set-up”, despite all that’s been revealed about Sayoc.

Kathy Chenette, 62, a realtor from Mooresville, North Carolina, said she had read on Twitter that the same configuration of stickers on the back of the van had been photographed on the side of the van.

“This was obviously Photoshopped,” she said. “I think it’s a distraction against the invasion of illegal immigrants at the border. It’s all set up by Soros.”

George Soros, the billionaire financier, activist and philanthropist, was one of those who had a bomb mailed to his address. In the criminal complaint, prosecutors alleged that comments critical of Soros were posted on Wednesday on a Twitter account believed to be used by Sayoc.

“We just don’t know,” said Tyler Yelton, 43, who works as a landscaper. “Maybe he bought the van already with the stickers on it, or maybe this whole thing is a setup.”

Read more from Charlotte below: