FBI says letter sent to Obama tested positive for poison ricin

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A letter addressed to President Barack Obama contained a substance that preliminarily tested positive for the deadly poison ricin, authorities said on Wednesday.

News that the letter to Obama was being investigated came as a flurry of other reports of suspicious letters and a package caused the evacuation of parts of two Senate buildings and set nerves in Washington on edge.

The letter contained "a granular substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin," an FBI statement said. But the statement added: "There is no indication of a connection to the attack in Boston," where three people were killed in bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday.

The U.S. Secret Service said the letter to Obama was received at a mail screening facility on Tuesday.

The mail facility that received the letter was not located near the White House itself, Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said in a statement.

"The Secret Service is working closely with the U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI in this investigation," Donovan said.

Parts of the Russell and Hart Senate office buildings were cleared while officials investigated suspicious letters and a package, a Capitol Police spokesman said.

CNN read a statement from a spokesman to Senator Richard Shelby, saying that Capitol Police were investigating a suspicious package that had been delivered to their office.

Senator Carl Levin said one of his Michigan regional offices had received a suspicious-looking letter, but it was not opened. Authorities are investigating, Levin said in a statement.

On Tuesday U.S. authorities intercepted a letter sent to Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker that preliminary tests showed contained the deadly poison ricin.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Vicki Allen and Jim Loney)

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Letter sent to senator tested positive for poison ricin

By Patricia Zengerle and Patrick Temple-West

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Officials said they intercepted a letter sent to Republican Senator Roger Wicker on Tuesday that tested positive for the deadly poison ricin, and that the Capitol police, FBI and other agencies had launched an investigation.

The letter was postmarked from Memphis, Tennessee, and had no return address, Terrance Gaines, the Senate sergeant at arms, said in a warning to members of the Senate.

"Senate employees should be vigilant in their mail handling processes for ALL mailings," Gaines said in a written statement.

Members of the Senate were briefed on the ricin incident by Gaines during a meeting with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Janet Napolitano, the secretary of Homeland Security, on Tuesday on the bombings in Boston.

Several senators told reporters after the briefing that incident reminded them of the anthrax attacks in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

"I don't know if it's a coincidence. It's too early to tell. We don't know enough about Boston," said Senator Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate.

Several senators said that all mail to the Senate had been stopped and post offices at the Capitol had been closed as a precaution. They said they were getting in touch with their state offices, where mail is not routinely screened, to ensure that precautions were being put in place.

They said they were aware of only one letter that had been intercepted that tested positive for ricin.

It was not immediately clear whether Wicker had attended the briefing by Mueller and Napolitano, which was open to all senators from both parties.

A spokeswoman for the Mississippi senator referred inquiries to Capitol Police. A spokesman for the Capitol Police could not immediately be reached for comment.

Ricin is a lethal poison found naturally in castor beans.

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai and David Lawder; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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