The federal authorities are investigating whether the person responsible for sending poison-laced letters to Mayor Michael R Bloomberg and a lobbyist for his gun-control campaign in recent days may have also sent a similar letter to President Barack Obama, officials said Thursday.
Edwin Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, confirmed that authorities had "intercepted a letter to the president similar to the one addressed to Mayor Bloomberg in New York." The letter was intercepted at a White House mail-sorting facility, and the Secret Service turned it over to a task force led by the FBI that is investigating the matter, Donovan said.
One official with knowledge of the investigation said the unopened letter raised suspicions Wednesday because the postmark, the handwriting and the positioning of the handwriting on the envelope appeared similar to that of the ricin-laced letter that had been addressed to Bloomberg. The postmark was from Louisiana, another official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. That official added that, as of Thursday morning, it was unclear whether the letter to the president contained ricin. Laboratory testing was not yet done, another official said.
New York Police Commissioner Raymond W Kelly told reporters Thursday that he believed all three letters were the same.
"They are addressed from the envelope but not on the letter itself," Kelly said. "In the letter it says 'you' and then starts off with the narrative. The letter in essence complains about gun control and says that anyone who comes for my guns will be shot in the face."
© 2013, The New York Times News Service