Bomb mailed to De Niro in New York
Packages addressed to former VP Biden intercepted in Delaware
WASHINGTON— Investigators searched coast-to-coast Thursday for the culprit and mysterious motives behind the bizarre mail-bomb plot aimed at critics of the U.S. president, analyzing the crude devices to reveal whether they were intended to detonate or simply sow fear two weeks before election day. Three more devices were linked to the plot — two addressed to former vice-president Joe Biden and one to actor Robert De Niro — bringing the total to 10 in an outbreak of politically loaded menace with little if any precedent. Authorities warned there might be more.
Law enforcement officials said the devices, containing timers and batteries, were not rigged like booby-trapped package bombs that would explode upon opening. But they were still uncertain whether the devices were poorly designed or never intended to cause physical harm. A search of a postal database suggested at least some may have been mailed from Florida, one official said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation.
New details about the devices came as the four-day mailbomb scare spread nationwide, drawing investigators from dozens of federal, state and local agencies in the effort to identify one or more perpetrators.
The targets have included for- mer president Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, CNN and Rep. Maxine Waters of California. The common thread among them was obvious: Critical words for Donald Trump and harsher criticism in return.
At a news conference Thursday in New York, officials wouldn’t discuss possible motives or details on how the packages found their way into the U.S. postal system. Nor would they say why none of the packages had detonated, but they stressed they were still treating them as “live devices.”
“As far as a hoax device, we’re not treating it that way,” police commissioner James O’Neill said.
Details suggested a pattern — that the items were packaged in manila envelopes, addressed to prominent Trump critics and carried U.S. postage stamps. The devices were being examined by technicians at the FBI’s forensic lab in Quantico, Va.
The packages stoked nationwide tensions and fears as voters prepared to vote Nov. 6 to determine control of Congress — a campaign both parties have described in near-apocalyptic terms. Even with the sender still unknown, politicians from both parties used the threats to decry a toxic political climate and lay blame.
“A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News,” Trump tweeted. “It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”
Former CIA director John Brennan, the target of a package sent to CNN, fired back.
“Stop blaming others. Look in the mirror,” Brennan tweeted. “Your inflammatory rhetoric, insults, lies, & encouragement of physical violence are disgraceful. Clean up your act ... try to act Presidential.”