Randy Fine Corruption & Ethics Controversy Florida

Randy Fine Rang a Voter's Doorbell. When Nobody Answered, He Opened Their Mailbox and Started Flipping Through the Mail.

A Ring camera caught the Florida congressman going through a constituent's mailbox while canvassing two days before his primary. His office confirmed to TMZ it was him. Fine says he does not remember doing it and questions whether the video is real.

MAGA Report Cards · Aug 19, 2026

There is a short list of things you should not do at a stranger's front door. Near the top of it: open their mailbox and start reading their mail.

On Sunday, a doorbell camera in Florida's 6th Congressional District recorded a man doing exactly that. He rang the bell. Nobody answered. He opened the mailbox and flipped through what was inside for a few seconds, then moved on.

The man was Randy Fine, the district's sitting member of Congress, out canvassing for votes ahead of Tuesday's primary.

The video went viral on Monday. On Tuesday, Fine's office confirmed to TMZ that the man in the footage is him.

The confirmation came with no explanation of what he was doing.

What the law says

The relevant statute is 18 U.S. Code § 1702, "Obstruction of correspondence," and it is short enough to read in full:

"Whoever takes any letter, postal card, or package out of any post office or any authorized depository for mail matter, or from any letter or mail carrier, or which has been in any post office or authorized depository, or in the custody of any letter or mail carrier, before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was directed, with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

Note the phrase "pry into the business or secrets of another." The law doesn't require that anything be stolen or destroyed. Looking is enough, if that's why you opened it.

Whether Fine's few seconds at that mailbox meet that standard is a question for prosecutors, not for us. What we can say is that a sitting member of Congress was filmed doing the thing the statute describes, at a house he had chosen to visit, two days before an election in which he was on the ballot.

The timing is the part that should bother you

Fine was not passing by. He was canvassing — going door to door in his own district, asking people for their votes, two days before Florida's congressional primary. President Donald Trump had endorsed him over the weekend.

So the sequence is: get the president's endorsement, go out to collect votes, ring a voter's bell, and when the voter isn't home, go through their mail.

Whatever he was looking for, he was looking for it in a house whose vote he was there to ask for.

Rep. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat, put it bluntly: "Watch my 'colleague' Randy Fine break the law by going through someone's mail. MAGA movement's newest hero is breaking federal law. Just like Daddy Trump. Time to throw these bums out in November!"

Barbie Harden Hall, a former Democratic House candidate in Florida, asked the question most people watching it asked: "Why are you looking through someone's mailbox while you're out canvassing? Not only is it wrong, it's creepy as fuck."

This is not the first time Randy Fine has been the story

Fine has built a national profile out of saying things that get him condemned, and then not backing down from them.

In July he went on television and declared that "a Muslim terrorist runs the city of New York" — blaming New York's mayor for a stabbing that police were investigating as a possible hate crime committed by a man they said may have had mental health problems. In February, a wave of House Democrats called for him to be formally reprimanded or to resign over a post saying he would choose dogs over Muslims.

Earlier, he cast the only Republican vote against a House rule — and told the White House he would vote against every rule on the floor until Trump fired a consultant who criticized him on a podcast. And after the U.S. struck Iran, he talked about opening "the gates of hell".

The pattern isn't that Fine occasionally slips. It's that the rules — of decorum, of decency, and now possibly of federal law — are treated as things that apply to other people.

Why a small thing matters

It would be easy to wave this off. Nobody's mail was stolen. No harm was proven. A few seconds of footage.

But think about what mail actually is. It's your bank statements. Your prescriptions. Your ballot, in a state where three million people voted by mail in 2024. Your medical letters. The federal government protects it with a five-year felony precisely because the contents of a mailbox are the most ordinary, unguarded record of a person's private life.

And the person who opened this one is a member of the body that writes those laws. He wasn't a stranger passing through. He was there in his official capacity as their congressman, asking to keep the job.

The homeowner watched it happen on her phone and called the police. Ormond Beach officers took a report and told TMZ that Fine did not appear to have taken anything and that she did not want to press charges, so there are no charges and no case. He is entitled to the same presumption of innocence as anyone else.

What he is not entitled to is a memory lapse. His own office told TMZ the man in the video is him. Asked about it by an MS NOW reporter as voters went to the polls, Fine said: "I don't even know that it's real. I certainly don't remember doing that." Pressed on whether he would take responsibility, he answered: "I don't remember even doing it, so I'm not gonna take accountability for something I don't know that I actually did."

Two days before an election, in a district he represents, a congressman opened a voter's mailbox on camera. His office says it was him. He says he does not remember.