Suspicious mail containing white powder sent to election offices in at least 16 states
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(NEW YORK) — The FBI and Postal Service are investigating suspicious mail containing a white powder substance that was sent to election offices in at least 16 states this week, according to an ABC News canvass of the country.
None of the mail has been deemed hazardous so far — and in one case, the substance was determined to be flour — but the scare prompted evacuations in some locations.
Election offices in New York, Tennessee, Wyoming, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Colorado received the suspicious packages. Similar suspicious mail was addressed to offices in additional states — Arizona, Georgia, Connecticut and Maryland among them — but investigators intercepted them before they reached their destination.
The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service said in a statement Tuesday that they were investigating letters containing white powdery substances. A law enforcement source said at this point none of the packages were believed to be hazardous.
“We are also working with our partners to determine how many letters were sent, the individual or individuals responsible for the letters, and the motive behind the letters,” the statement read.
At least some of the packages were signed by the “United States Traitor Elimination Army,” according to a copy of a letter sent to members of the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center obtained by ABC News.
Election offices office in Kansas and Wyoming were evacuated on Monday, officials said, and the ventilation system in the Missouri secretary of state’s office in Jefferson City was briefly shut off as a precaution. The North Carolina Board of Elections did not receive any packages with white powder, but an official there told ABC News they are putting in place new safety precautions in light of the incidents in other states.
This latest incident marks the second time in the past year that suspicious mailings containing a white powdery substance were sent to election offices. Last November, similar envelopes were sent to elections offices in five states — four of which tested positive for fentanyl, the FBI said at the time.
In the intervening months, several offices have taken steps to train staff on how to handle poisonous material sent in the mail. In Milwaukee, for example, election workers recently received training on how to administer Narcan.
The National Association of Secretaries of State released a statement urging an end to the “threatening and intimidating actions towards election officials” during recent election cycles.
“This must stop, period,” the statement read. “Our democracy has no place for political violence, threats or intimidation of any kind.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump visited Aurora, Colorado, for a campaign rally on Friday where he continued to push misleading narratives about the city’s migrant population.
“My message today is very simple,” Trump told the crowd. “No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become the president of the United States. We’re not going to let it happen.”
In the final weeks of his campaign, Trump has continued to focus on the issue of immigration, escalating his rhetoric on undocumented immigrants he often paints as violent criminals.
“I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered,” Trump said. “These towns have been conquered … And we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country. And we will be very, very effective in doing it. It’s going to happen very, very fast.”
Specifically, the former president has used Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, to emphasize his point, both examples stemming from viral online stories he’s been quick to promote, often without proper context.
His false narratives on Aurora began last month when a video of armed individuals roaming around an apartment complex in Aurora went viral among right-wing social media influencers.
Trump, who has shared that video himself, has repeatedly claimed that members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have “taken over” apartment complexes and “overrun” the city, despite the Aurora Police Department refuting allegations of the apartment complex being run by a Venezuelan gang.
Aurora’s Police Chief Todd Chamberlain has directly refuted Trump’s claims, saying in a press conference late last month that, “This is not an immigration issue. This is a crime issue.”
“We are not, by any means, overtaken by Venezuelan gangs,” he added.
The City of Aurora also provided clarity on the situation in a post on its official X account, stating that while there was a concern about a “small” presence of the Venezuelan gang members in Aurora, the city is taking the situation seriously. The city stressed that Aurora is a “safe community” and that reports of gang members are “isolated to a handful of problem properties alone.”
Mike Coffman, the Republican mayor of Aurora, has also pushed back on Trump’s “grossly exaggerated” claims.
“Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said.
Still, Trump has continued to amplify these debunked stories to his supporters throughout the country as a rallying cry as he attacks the immigration policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
At his second campaign stop on Friday in Reno, Nevada, Trump continued to repeat baseless and debunked rhetoric on a Venezuelan gang taking over apartment complexes in Aurora even after the city’s Republican mayor denounced his rhetoric, saying his comments “unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety.”
In Reno, the former president again called the U.S. an “occupied country” and the situation in Aurora a “full-blown invasion.”
“It is a full blown invasion. Armed Venezuelan gang members storming an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado,” Trump said.
In the press release announcing Friday’s event, the Trump campaign described Aurora as a “war zone,” arguing people were crossing the border and descending upon the city “bringing chaos and fear with them.”
Similarly, Trump has repeatedly amplified debunked claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield.
Trump’s visit is one that he has been wanting to make for a while to bring more attention to the country’s immigration policies. At recent campaign rallies, Trump has become more vocal about his desire to visit Aurora and Springfield.
While the Republican mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, discouraged visits from candidates on both sides of the aisle, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has presented the trip as a learning opportunity for the former president.
“The reality is, Donald Trump continues to tell economically damaging and hurtful lies about Aurora,” Polis said in a statement to ABC affiliate Denver7 amid ongoing discussions of a potential visit. “If former President Trump does visit, he will find the city of Aurora is a strong, vibrant, and diverse city of more than 400,000 hardworking Coloradans and a wonderful place to live, run a business, raise a family, and retire.”
Trump has launched attacks on the local and state officials on the campaign trail, often making baseless claims that Aurora Mayor Coffman and Gov. Polis are “petrified,” saying Coffman “doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing” — and even claiming they don’t want to raise the immigration issue because they want to be “politically correct.”
Campaigning in Uniondale, New York, last month, Trump, while declaring that he planned to visit Aurora and Springfield soon, suggested that he might not make it back out after his visiting those places due to unspecified crime.
“I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield, and I’m going to Aurora,” Trump said in Uniondale. “You may never see me again, but that’s OK. Got to do what I got to do. Whatever happened to Trump? ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.'”
Trump’s visit to Aurora also came as he’s pledged on the campaign trail to begin his promise of mass deportations in Springfield and Aurora.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump said as he took reporter questions in Los Angeles, California, last month. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora, [Colorado].”
“We’re going to take those violent people, and we’re going to ship them back to their country, and if they come back in, they’re going to pay a hell of a price,” Trump also said.
Springfield has many Haitian residents who are either legally authorized to live and work in the U.S. or are protected from expulsion by law.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday evening that House Republicans from across the conference struck a deal to raise the threshold for the motion to vacate — a procedure rank-and-file lawmakers can use to remove the speaker. The new agreement makes it harder to remove a speaker from the position.
The agreement would raise the threshold to force a vote on ousting a speaker from one member to nine members.
While the nine-member threshold makes it harder to oust a speaker, it does not completely remove the threat.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland and Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota — who negotiated the deal on Wednesday — appeared with Johnson at a press conference where they explained the change.
“We had an opportunity to set the motion to vacate at a higher than number one, that motion to vacate will be set at nine in return for getting rid of some amendments that probably would have divided this conference,” Johnson said.
He said the agreement allows Republicans to be “in a better position to move forward with the Republican agenda to make sure that Speaker Johnson, South Dakota Senate Leader John Thune and our President Donald Trump have an opportunity to go forward.”
“For me this is exactly how we’re supposed to come together,” Johnson said.
Harris said the change allows the conference to execute on Trump’s plans.
“We’ve been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us and move forward together to deliver on the President’s agenda. That’s it,” Harris said.
Earlier this year, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, threatening to oust Johnson just months after he ascended to the speakership. When she officially triggered a vote on her motion to oust Johnson, Democrats joined almost all Republicans to overwhelmingly reject her move.
House Republicans will are huddling Thursday morning where they’ll still have to ratify the agreement.
Johnson won the House Republican nomination Wednesday to stay on as the House’s top job. On Wednesday, he said he was “delighted” and “honored” to be the nominee for speaker, saying “we’ll head into Jan. 3 to make all that happen.”
The chamber will vote on their rules package for the 119th Congress on Jan. 3, 2025, following the election of the speaker on the floor.
In this April 9, 2022, file photo, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson joins the stage with former President Donald Trump during a rally in Selma, North Carolina. — Allison Joyce/Getty Images, FILE
(WILMINGTON, N.C.) — Former President Donald Trump returned to the key battleground state of North Carolina for a rally Saturday, but declined to mention Mark Robinson — his party’s nominee for governor in the state.
The rally went on amid the allegations surrounding the Republican lieutenant governor, who the former president had previously supported and called “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
Robinson, who did not appear at the rally, was accused of posting inflammatory comments on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago, according to a report published Thursday from CNN.
The embattled gubernatorial candidate had not been expected to attend Saturday’s rally. Trump has not given any indication that he intends to pull his endorsement of Robinson.
In a statement Sunday, Robinson’s campaign said four key staffers had “stepped down” from the campaign: general consultant and senior advisor Conrad Pogorzelski, III; campaign manager Chris Rodriguez; finance director Heather Whillier; and deputy campaign manager Jason Rizk.
“I appreciate the efforts of these team members who have made the difficult choice to step away from the campaign, and I wish them well in their future endeavors. I look forward to announcing new staff roles in the coming days,” Robinson said in a statement.
Trump has campaigned for Robinson multiple times during this election cycle, including inviting him to speak at his rallies in North Carolina this year and hosting him at his Mar-a-Lago estate for a fundraiser last year.
People close to the former president told ABC News that they were bracing for the Robinson story on Thursday. The campaign was planning to put more distance between Trump and Robinson, but initially did not have plans to push him to drop out, sources said.
Robinson’s beleaguered campaign, however, did come up at a rally headlined by vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Walz insinuated that Trump was no “different” from Robinson.
“We got folks running as Republicans for governor that are proud to refer to themselves as Nazis. Let’s not pretend that there’s a gradual difference between the folks that are running here– that they’re running together,” Walz said.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
