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Glenn Beck has spent lots of time in recent days alleging that the Boston Marathon bombing was carried out by a conspiracy that revolved around a shadowy Saudi national questioned by police in a Boston hospital in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

OK, is he just winging it here, or does the ex-Fox, now-independent radio and Internet video host have any real evidence for this charge?

He says he does, unsurprisingly. On Wednesday morning Mr. Beck produced a document that he claimed is an official US 鈥渆vent report鈥� showing that the Saudi in question is a bad, bad man who was on a no-fly list and already subject to visa revocation.

What he didn鈥檛 mention is that Fox News reporter Bret Baier has already looked into this whole alleged Saudi conspiracy, including the document Beck deemed so revealing, and concluded that there was no there there, to paraphrase writer about Oakland.

It鈥檚 鈥渇alse and misleading鈥� to use the internal document on the Saudi鈥檚 immigration status as evidence of the man鈥檚 involvement in the bombings, according to US officials quoted by Mr. Baier in a on April 23.

鈥淭丑别 FBI says the Saudi [in question] was just a victim of the terrorist attack,鈥� said Baier.

OK, let鈥檚 rewind a bit to clarify this, shall we?

In the immediate aftermath of the Boston tragedy, many media outlets reported that law enforcement officials were interrogating an injured Saudi man who had been seen running from the site of the bombs. Authorities that evening searched his residence in suburban Revere.

Officials later reported that this Saudi was a student and an who had been injured by the blasts and was trying to escape along with many other people on the Marathon route.

Although the man鈥檚 name has been reported by some media outlets, Decoder won鈥檛 be using it, so as to not further publicize the identity of someone police say did nothing wrong.

Since then Glenn Beck has continued to link the Saudi to the bombing and to terrorism in general. He has charged that the man was in the US on a student visa that had expired and that he will be deported by US immigration for security reasons. He has gone so far as to speculate that a Saudi national may have been an Al Qaeda control agent who recruited the Tsarnaev brothers to carry out the Boston attacks.

Then on Wednesday Beck dropped his other shoe, revealing what he said was important new evidence in the case.

Beck said he had received a document he called a 212 3(B) report, named after its reference in the Patriot Act. The document said that a Saudi national with the same name as the person questioned in the hours after the bombing is an 鈥渆xact match鈥� to someone on a no-fly list and that derogatory information on him is 鈥渟ufficient to request visa revocation.鈥�

A copy of the alleged document posted online by Beck鈥檚 web site The Blaze also noted that the person in question 鈥渉as One (1) prior event,鈥� though there was no indication what, or how serious, that event was.

Wow, I mean, this does not look good, does it? Twitter has exploded with comments about how important this is, and how it presages the exposure of the conspiracy, which probably involves everyone up to the level of the Oval Office, and perhaps beyond.

But Bret Baier had this piece of paper already. On Tuesday, he talked with US officials about it, and got a different story.

First off, Baier said the wording of the paper was indeed somewhat dire.

鈥淎nyone looking at this would say this is a bad guy, this means they had a lot of stuff on this guy,鈥� he said.

But officials told him it was simply an automatic piece of customs paperwork triggered when police went to question the Saudi in the hours after the bombing.

To make sure he did not somehow get on an airplane before they could talk to him, they put him on a no-fly list. That automatically meant he was subject to visa revocation. The other language, including the reference to an 鈥渆vent,鈥� followed from that.

鈥淎lso keep in mind, it鈥檚 just 鈥� a customs and border control document鈥�. It鈥檚 not indicative of any investigative information,鈥� said Baier.

After the FBI determined the man had no connection to the Boston crime, it took several days for the bureaucracy to scrub him out of its system. That is why the document existed for a short period of time, and why it shows evidence of officials trying to change it. But anyone searching the system for his name on the Sunday prior to the bombing would have found nothing, reported Baier, because no US government agency was looking for him.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano referred to all this obliquely in a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R) of Iowa asked her, 鈥淲ith regard to the Saudi student, was he on a watch list?鈥�

The Homeland Security Secretary replied that the Saudi in question had not been on a watch list prior to the bombings and was never really a person of interest in the case.

鈥淏ecause he was being interviewed, he was at that point put on a watch list,鈥� Napolitano added. 鈥淎nd then when it was quickly determined he had nothing to do with the bombing, the watch listing status was removed.鈥�

As if all this weren鈥檛 complicated enough, a number of news outlets have reported that there is a second Saudi man in Boston, unrelated to the student, who was taken into custody when he showed up at a port to retrieve a package, and a routine check showed he had overstayed his visa.

That鈥檚 the Saudi who is subject to deportation. The student who was caught in the bomb blast is not.

Of course, it鈥檚 easy to point out that all this is based on the word of US officials, and that they鈥檙e eager to cover up the conspiracy, since it makes them look bad, or they are part of it, or something like that.

But that鈥檚 why conspiracy theories persist: it鈥檚 easy to dream them up, and hard to disprove them, especially to believers.