New York Post

Danger came packed in a plain wrapper

- By LARRY CELONA, AARON FEIS and BRUCE GOLDING Additional reporting by Tina Moore

They all arrived in identical packaging.

The seven suspicious packages sent to former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others each icame in a nondescrip­t manila envelope lined with bubble wrap, the FBI said on Wednesday.

The mailers all bore six American-flag “Forever” stamps and computer-printed address labels.

“All packages had a return address of ‘DEBBIE WASSERMAN SHULTZ’ [sic] in Florida,” the agency said in a statement.

The envelope sent to former CIA Director John Brennan at CNN offices in Manhattan also had his name misspelled, as was Rep. Wasserman Schultz’s home state, according to photos released by CNN.

That envelope didn’t bear a postmark, and law-enforcemen­t sources told CNN it was delivered by a courier.

On the device was an ISIS parody flag with the silhouette­s of naked women and the words “Get ‘Er Done.”

Photos of the device show a cylindrica­l object, about six inches long, wrapped in black electrical tape and with wires emerging from either end. The wires — one red and one black — lead to a digital clock or timer taped to the middle of the tube.

A senior law-enforcemen­t official told The New York Times that it resembled the others, saying, “Same package. Same device.”

The devices were all made from a PVC pipe and packed with shards of glass and powder, a lawenforce­ment official told The Associated Press.

Each had a small battery, similar to the one in a watch, the official said.

The FBI described the devices as “potentiall­y destructiv­e,” and law-

enforcemen­t sources told The Post that the first one discovered — in a mailbox outside the Katonah home of billionair­e George Soros Monday — had black powder on it.

But a source briefed on that device and the one sent to CNN told The Post on Wednesday that they couldn’t actually have blown up because neither was equipped with a blasting cap or other means of detonating explosive material.

“There was nothing to ignite it,” the source said.

The source also said an envelope of unidentifi­ed powder contained in the CNN package was too small to create a radiologic­al or biological “dirty bomb.”

The fact that none of the bombs blew up suggests they were built by an amateur, former FBI Agent Steve Gomez told ABC News.

The NYPD used its rarely seen Total Containmen­t Vessel to move the CNN device from the network’s bureau at the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle to the Rodman’s Neck police facility in The Bronx.

Members of the NYPD Bomb Squad carefully loaded the device into the back of the TCV, placing it onto a suspended net inside the chamber designed to minimize jostling, police sources said.

The TCV, which is mounted on the back of an NYPD Emergency Service Unit truck, is engineered to withstand a blast from within should the device be set off during the trip, minimizing harm to those outside.

In the early afternoon, police blocked off a route to Rodman’s Neck, providing the TCV with quick access to the facility with minimal risk to motorists.

Escorted by a convoy of emergency vehicles, the TCV wound its way to the remote firing range and training facility.

Technician­s from the NYPD and FBI are now figuring out how to safely transport the device to federal labs for further examinatio­n, NYPD Deputy Commission­er of Intelligen­ce and Counterter­rorism John Miller said.

The process is being hampered by the powder included in the bomb package, Miller said.

Ideally, investigat­ors would like to disarm the bomb without detonating it, allowing them to comb over it for any clues to the maker’s identity, including fingerprin­ts and DNA, sources said.

 ??  ?? NAKED FEAR: The apparent bomb that was sent to CNN’s Columbus Circle headquarte­rs was embossed with what’s meant to look like an ISIS flag, but instead contains the silhouette­s of naked women with the words “Get ’Er Done.” The device was transporte­d Wednesday by the NYPD in a Total Containmen­t Vessel (inset right) to the Rodman’s Neck police facility in The Bronx.
NAKED FEAR: The apparent bomb that was sent to CNN’s Columbus Circle headquarte­rs was embossed with what’s meant to look like an ISIS flag, but instead contains the silhouette­s of naked women with the words “Get ’Er Done.” The device was transporte­d Wednesday by the NYPD in a Total Containmen­t Vessel (inset right) to the Rodman’s Neck police facility in The Bronx.
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