oops, forgot to include you in ping to 262. I also incorrectly referred to you as “Gleon” and not “Kleon.”
You’re doing excellent work here, but there’s just one thing I want to add to your points. People keep referring to the “layers” in the document. But from what I’ve seen in the videos, and what I got when I opened the PDF in Illustrator myself, there aren’t layers; there is one layer with multiple “groups.” Now, from what I read, it’s possible to import a layered Photoshop document into Illustrator and turn the layers into groups on a single layer, but it’s a deliberate choice and a manual action, not something that just happens. Also, if the PDF reveals that when opened in Illustrator, it should reveal the “layers” when opened in Acrobat—which it didn’t when I tried it, and I haven’t seen anyone demonstrating that it does.
So to consider the “layers” as evidence of forgery, we have to believe that
1. the forger assembled the document in Illustrator, cutting and pasting letter by letter (in some cases) into multiple groups on one layer, a process that no one would use—no one would use Illustrator to assemble a document the way people say this one was assembled, that’s just not what it’s good for; or
2. the forger assembled the document in Photoshop, imported it into Illustrator while making the conscious choice to turn the layers into groups, and then saved the PDF from Illustrator.
Neither of those options make sense to me.