Mystery in aisle 3! Rubio’s official stationery winds up in discount store

A head-scratching stumper is developing over a how a Florida senator’s stationery ended up in a Missouri discount store.

Lawyer Dale Ingram was bargain-hunting for office supplies this month at a Kansas City shop called Cargo Largo when he made the unusual find: a pack of 500 business-letter envelopes stamped with Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) return address.

Aside from the lawmaker’s name, the envelopes were marked “Official Business,” according to The Kansas City Star, which first reported the mail mystery.

Ingram says the mailers, which he’d bought for under five bucks, weren’t emblazoned with the possible vice presidential candidate’s signature. But he questioned his purchase, telling the newspaper, “I thought, ‘How’s this being sold here?’ The taxpayers have probably paid for this once.”

The envelopes reportedly could have been mailed without using postage under the franking privilege.

Ingram admits he considered the possibilities in using the wandering writing materials to stir up some potential trouble for Rubio: “In my evil mind — not being part of that party — I was thinking I could probably send these out and create some mischief. And if not me, somebody else.”

But wiser heads apparently prevailed. Ingram says, “I wouldn’t want anyone to do something, even of Rubio’s party, and then blame it on the other party. Best to take them out of commerce.”

Rubio’s office told the Star that the envelopes were part of a shipment to the senator’s Tallahassee workplace.

In an emailed statement to the newspaper, spokesman Alex Conant wrote, “While other envelopes from that shipment are accounted for, we are working to determine how some were apparently separated. … While it’s not unheard of for things to get lost in transit, it’s something we take seriously.”

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