Mary Trump’s Friend Suggests the Real Villain in Trump SAT Scandal Hasn’t Been Found — So Where is He?

President Donald Trump paid a friend named Joe Shapiro to take the standardized SAT test for him, the president’s niece, Mary Trump, alleges in a new book about the president. The only problem? It isn’t clear which Joe Shapiro she’s referencing.

In her upcoming book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, the younger Trump alleges the president paid Shapiro to take the SAT on his behalf to improve his chances of transferring from Fordham University to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “That was much easier to pull on in the days before photo IDs and computerized records. Donald, who never lacked for funds, paid his buddy well,” she wrote.

The claim led media outlets from ABC News to the British Daily Mail to ask Shapiro’s widow, Pam Shriver, about the incident. “My late husband Joe Shapiro passed away 21 years ago. He was a man of great integrity, honesty; he was a hard worker. He was literally the smartest person I ever met,” Shriver said in a video on Twitter.

Shriver said in interviews that reporters have asked her about the claim for several years, and on Twitter, provided a timeline that would make it impossible for Shapiro to have taken the SAT on Trump’s behalf. “He went to University of Pennsylvania, member of the class of 1968. It was while he was at University of Pennsylvania where he met Donald Trump. They became friends; they loved the sport of golf. They shared the same hometown of New York City; they shared the same campus. They stayed in a little bit of touch through the years,” Shriver said, noting that she was recalling “what he told me about where he met Mr. Trump.”

Media published Shriver’s claims undermining Mary Trump’s allegation throughout the day Tuesday. The questions prompted CNN’s Erin Burnett to ask Alice Hafter-Frankston — who has been conducting interviews as Mary Trump’s “best friend” while Mary is under a gag order — to account for the discrepancy between stories.

“Can you clear this up for us? Is that the Joe Shapiro that Mary is alleging did this?” Burnett asked. “That’s not the Joe Shapiro,” Frankston replied. “The media has kind of zeroed in on Pam Shriver’s late husband.”

The reason she’s certain the media found the wrong Joe Shapiro, Frankston said, is that it would mean the story doesn’t make sense. “The timeline doesn’t match up, and it wouldn’t be logical because the incident would have happened when Mary’s uncle was at Fordham. And this Joe Shapiro and Mary’s uncle would have been at Penn at the same time. It doesn’t really match up, and that’s not the one.”

Burnett pressed Frankston to clarify, asking, “You’re saying they hadn’t met?” To which Frankston didn’t reply, but said, “Joe Shapiro is a very common name on the East Coast.” Burnett moved on without asking for further clarification.

The exchange produced more questions than answers. Which Joe Shapiro was Mary Trump referencing? Who told her about the events she described, which took place around the time of her 1965 birth? If it was her father, Fred Trump Jr., the last time she heard the story would have been prior to his 1981 death, when Mary was 16-years-old. That would also mean her recollection has almost certainly been undermined by the corrosive effect time takes on memory.

Until a court agrees to release Mary Trump from her gag order, questions about the issue may remain unanswered. In the meantime, Frankston’s apparent skepticism may provide Shriver with at least some relief. “I don’t believe she’s defending Trump,” a Twitter user retweeted by Shriver wrote on Tuesday. “But more importantly, this must stir up a lot of memories, and when our loved ones pass, keeping their honor and integrity intact is important. I think keeping that in mind is a good thing.”