Letter sent to Obama tests positive for ricin – FBI

                         

A letter addressed to President Obama was found to contain a substance that initially tested positive for the toxin ricin, the FBI said Wednesday.

The letter, intercepted Tuesday by authorities at a remote White House mail screening facility, contained “a granular substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin,” the FBI said in a statement. It said there was “no indication” of any connection to the bombings Monday that killed three spectators at the Boston Marathon.

The letter follows the discovery Tuesday of a ricin-laced letter sent to Sen. Roger Wicker(R-Miss.) and came as authorities were investigating suspicious packages in and near the offices of members of Congress.

Edwin Donovan, deputy assistant director of the U.S. Secret Service, did not identify the substance. However, he said the Secret Service is working closely with the U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI.

The substance was detected at a facility run by the Secret Service, Donovan said.

A law enforcement official with knowledge of the matter said the letter to Obama was intercepted in Anacostia, at a facility where all White House mail is initially screened.

It was then sent to a military installation in Maryland where preliminary testing found indications of ricin.

Confirmation of the powerful toxin can take 24 to 48 hours, depending on the method of testing.

CNN reported that the letters to Obama and Wicker had similar language and signatures. Quoting law enforcement sources, the network said the language included: “To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner in its continuance.” CNN said the letters were signed: “I am KC and I approve this message.”

U.S. Capitol Police, meanwhile, were called to investigate suspicious packages — one delivered to the front office of Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) in the Russell Senate Office Building and another left in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building.

The Capitol Police later fully reopened both buildings.

Jonathan Graffeo, a spokesman for Shelby, said in a statement: “The Capitol Police have given us the all clear. Sen. Shelby and staff are unharmed. Questions relating to any details of the investigation should be referred to the Capitol Police.”

First-floor offices in the Hart Senate Office Building were evacuated during the midday scare, and people on higher floors were told to stay in their offices.

When authorities later reopened the building, they did not immediately disclose what — if anything — had been found.

Shennell S. Antrobus, spokesman for U.S. Capitol Police, would say only that the Hart and Russell buildings were given the all-clear about 1 p.m., allowing for normal pedestrian traffic in and out. He said neither building was “locked down” but that people in both were told to remain in offices, and visitors were carefully screened.

He would not say whether the suspicious items were investigated and found not to be threats, or whether there was a legitimate threat that has been neutralized.

A law enforcement official said officers stopped and questioned one visitor who appeared suspicious, but did not arrest him. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say whether the man had a backpack with letters inside, as was first reported. The person subsequently left without being detained.

“The letter was not opened, and the staffer followed the proper protocols for the situation, including alerting the authorities, who are now investigating,” Levin said. “We do not know yet if the mail presented a threat.”

In late morning Wednesday, an envelope was hand-delivered to the third-floor Hart office of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), one of the lead negotiators on a gun-control bill that the Senate was scheduled to vote on Wednesday afternoon. Capitol Police removed the letter for testing.

In Phoenix, a suspicious letter was discovered Wednesday at the office of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), according to spokeswoman Genevieve Rozansky.

“There was a suspicious letter intercepted by a member of Senator Flake’s staff at his Phoenix office,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “Law enforcement officials are on the scene, and all staff members are safe. We will release details as we know more.”

Letters addressed to the White House are first delivered to a screening facility outside Washington, where they are tested for suspicious substances before being forwarded to a White House mail office located a few blocks from the White House. Since Obama became president in 2008, the Secret Service has intercepted at least half dozen threatening letters addressed to him, some including suspicious powder or HIV-positive blood.

The White House receives as many as 10,000 letters each week. Protocol demands that every piece of mail be tested for chemical and biological substances and then read by a White House employee.

Each night, 10 letters are forwarded to Obama in a purple folder that is included in his nightly briefing book. By the time a letter reaches his desk, it has usually spent three or four weeks in processing, and it has been read by at least a half dozen White House employees. The arduous mail process, which involves two facilities and 50 employees , was conceived in part to intercept threatening packages such as the latest one.

In 2004, three Senate office buildings were closed after preliminary tests found ricin delivered through the mail system in the Senate majority leader’s office.

At the time, the Associated Press wrote, “Twice as deadly as cobra venom, ricin, which is derived from the castor bean plant, is relatively easily made and can be inhaled, ingested or injected.” But investigators later said the test may have picked up non-toxic byproducts of the castor bean plant used in paper production.

Several letters with white powder were delivered to Capitol Hill during the 2001 anthrax scare, and lawmakers, Obama and Cabinet secretaries remain potential targets of copycat attacks.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday after a House hearing on the U.S. Postal Service’s financial problems, Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahue said a “fairly small number” of post office employees would have handled the suspicious letters to Obama and Wicker “because everything is automated” these days. “None of this mail would be hand-sorted.”

He said the mail would have passed through postal facilities in Memphis, Capitol Heights, Md., and on V Street NE in Washington. A “couple hundred people” work in each facility, he said.

“From what I know, it’s unproven” that the substance found was ricin, Donahue said. “There are compounds that people send through the mail that can mimic ricin,” he added.

During the hearing, Donahue said the postal service “can actually track the mail back through the system” to determine which employees handled mail. “We’ve got the absolute best detection systems going,” he said.

Joe Davidson, Paul Kane, Eli Saslow and Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.