Now MAGA bomber* targets De Niro and Obama’s vice president
*Named after Trump’s slogan: Make America Great Again
THE hunt for a serial bomber targeting critics of Donald Trump intensified last night after devices were sent to Robert De Niro and former Vice President Joe Biden.
The actor’s restaurant, the Tribeca Grill in Manhattan, was evacuated when the package containing explosives was found in the mailroom.
Two other bombs addressed to Barack Obama’s deputy Joe Biden were discovered at Delaware sorting offices, bringing the total number of devices to ten.
The terrorist has been dubbed ‘ the MAGA bomber’ – after Mr Trump’s election campaign slogan ‘Make America Great Again’.
The latest attempted attacks came after Mr Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and billionaire Democrat donor George Soros were targeted.
Mr Trump yesterday addressed the bombing crisis – and blamed the media for whipping up hatred in America.
The President wrote on Twitter that the media was responsible for ‘a very big part of the anger’ in society.
He accused the Press of ‘false and inaccurate reporting’, adding: ‘It has
‘Encouragement of violence’
gotten so bad and hateful it is beyond description. Mainstream media must clean up its act, FAST!’
Critics were quick to point out that most of the targets of the bombs have been abused by Mr Trump on Twitter.
John Brennan, the former CIA director whose name was on the bomb sent to news channel CNN in New York, responded: ‘Stop blaming others. Look in the mirror. Your inflammatory rhetoric, insults, lies and encouragement of physical violence are disgraceful.’
Specialists at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, are analysing the packages amid a nationwide manhunt involving the Joint Terrorism Task Force and hundreds of local police forces. None of the devices has gone off and no one has been injured.
But they reportedly had traces of sulphur in them which is inherently unstable.
Mr De Niro has frequently been critical of the President. At the 2018 Tony Awards he received a standing ovation for saying ‘F*** Trump’. Trump responded by calling him a ‘very low IQ individual’.
In another interview, Mr De Niro called Mr Trump a ‘scumbag’ and at the G7 meeting in Quebec this June he apologised for the President’s ‘idiotic behaviour’.
A spokesman for the actor called it ‘extremely disturbing and frightening’. He said: ‘It seems that all the people that were targeted have one thing in common and that is their political beliefs.’
New York police said the package went to a building that houses the restaurant and the actor’s film company Tribeca Productions.
It was reported that a retired police officer who works there found the package and left it in his office. He called the authorities when he recognised the packaging of other bombs on TV. Mr De Niro was not there at the time. Meanwhile, one bomb addressed to Mr Biden used his full name, Joseph Robinette Biden, and was found at a postal facility in New Castle, Delaware. Another was found at a sorting office in Wilmington.
Like the previous packages, both the bombs were in a manila envelope, had a computer printed label and had six American flag stamps arranged in two rows.
More were sent to frequent Trump critics – Democrats Maxine Waters and former attorney general Eric Holder. The MAGA Bomber uses a fake return address of former Democratic National Committee chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida. A federal law enforcement source said they had leads in the state.
The case is becoming the most serious mail-based terror plot since the 2001 Anthrax attacks that killed five people in the weeks after the 9/11 strikes in 2001.
X-ray images reveal that each of the one-inch by six-inch PVC pipe bombs was filled with explosive powder and broken glass.
The bomber used a small buttonshaped battery and a digital clock as a timer in a ‘ rudimentary’ design, FBI sources said. A picture of the device also seemed to show a parody Islamic State flag.
New York state governor Andrew Cuomo said he would ‘not be surprised’ if there were more to come. He said they were ‘bombs capable of detonation’ and why they did not explode is ‘not clear’.
Mr Cuomo said: ‘It could just be a person who is not proficient or it could be there was an intent not to have the bomb explode but only intimidate.’