This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/us/politics/toxic-ricin-detected-on-mail-sent-to-senator.html

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Toxic Ricin Detected on Mail Sent to Senator Toxic Ricin Is Detected in Letter Mailed to Senator
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — The federal authorities have detected highly toxic ricin powder on a letter sent to Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday. WASHINGTON — A letter sent to a Mississippi senator tested positive for the poison ricin, federal authorities revealed Tuesday, adding to security concerns in the Capitol after the Boston Marathon bombing.
The substance was detected on a letter at a mail processing center for members of Congress that is away from the Capitol, the official said. The official, who declined to be identified, would not elaborate. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, confirmed that an envelope addressed to Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, a Republican, had been tested twice for ricin in a mail facility away from the Capitol with positive results both times. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was briefing senators on the Boston attack when she told them about the ricin.
The results of tests performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the mail center were positive for ricin, the official said. But the official said ricin tests were often unreliable, so the authorities had the letter taken to the F.B.I.'s laboratories in Quantico, Va., for more analysis. The letter was postmarked in Memphis and had no suspicious markings or return address, the office of the Senate sergeant-at-arms reported.
A federal official said the letter had been sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s laboratories in Quantico, Va., for further examination because field tests for ricin can be unreliable.
Ricin can be fatal if ingested or inhaled. In 2004, Senate offices were closed for days after the poison was found in the mailroom of Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, who was the majority leader then. And detection of ricin carried echoes of the anthrax attack on the Senate just days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, told reporters after the Napolitano briefing that the letter had come from someone who frequently writes lawmakers. She said the person had been identified, but she declined to divulge the name.
Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said: “Obviously, I’m concerned. It’s not just members concerned. It rarely gets to a member before it goes through a lot of staff, and that’s a big concern, obviously, for all of us. We’re very anxious to get more details.”
As a precaution, Senate post offices on Capitol Hill were shut down and will most likely remain closed for the rest of the week. Senators were told that there was no evidence of contamination inside the Capitol or on the grounds, but investigators were still looking into whether any similar envelopes had been sent to anyone in the House.
As Senator Angus King left Ms. Napolitano’s briefing, he said, “It’s now been confirmed that ricin was found in an envelope at the screening facility, which is off-site, not here at the Capitol.”
“I don’t have any information that it’s in any way connected with what happened in Boston,” Mr. King, an independent from Maine, said. “It may just be an unfortunate coincidence.”
News of the discovery was reverberating outside Washington on Tuesday evening. Senators’ offices in their states, which do not have the same kind of mail screening that the Capitol does, were told to look out for suspicious packages.
The anthrax-tainted letters addressed to members of Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks were the first modern instance of bioterrorism to rattle Capitol Hill. The discovery of anthrax in a letter addressed to Senator Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota and the majority leader at the time, led postal inspectors and the F.B.I. to seize all mail on Capitol Hill, seal it in 55-gallon barrels and move it to a warehouse outside Washington.

Michael S. Schmidt, Jeremy W. Peters and Ashley Parker contributed reporting.