The wave of suspicious packages sent to prominent Democrats and news organizations that have been critical of President Trump — who has also been reliably critical of the media in response — continues. On Wednesday, we learned that explosive devices were mailed to the Obamas, the Clintons, and CNN, a day after George Soros also received a crude pipe bomb in the mail. Former AG Eric Holder, ex-CIA Director John Brennan, and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) were also targeted, and Thursday resumes the trend with both Robert De Niro and Joe Biden being sent suspicious packages with telling similarities to the devices lurking within previous packages.
NBC News reports that the package en route to De Niro, a vocal Trump critic who recently hurled F-bombs at the president during an awards speech, was discovered at his Manhattan office building. Over in Delaware, two packages addressed to former VP Biden surfaced at separate postal facilities. A law enforcement official who spoke with the New York Times stated that the device sent to De Niro “appears to be from the same sender” as the other packages. The publication also notes that additional suspicious packages (addressed to unidentified recipients) were detected overnight amid an intense investigation:
The United States Postal Service records images of mail that comes into its system. Officials searched those images overnight and found several other suspicious packages, a law enforcement official said. It was not immediately clear how many they discovered.
A wide swath of investigators from New York to California to D.C. to Florida are devoted to the case, which (miraculously) has not yet injured anyone, although as CNN’s Jake Tapper noted on Twitter, the devices within these packages “were rudimentary but functional … Meaning the intent here was mass murder.” Authorities are urging the public to stay vigilant as the manhunt for the perpetrator(s) responsible for the deliveries persists.
Very early Thursday morning, President Trump appeared to indirectly address speculation that his own incendiary rhetoric against the media may have inspired said perpetrator. And in doing so, he pointed the finger at the press. “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,” he stated on Twitter. “It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”
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. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2018
(Via NBC News, New York Times, Chicago Tribune & CNN)