FBI Probes 100 White Powder Letters to Congress, Election Offices

Federal investigators are working through more than 100 suspicious letters sent to members of Congress and to election officials across the country, two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Some of the letters contained a white powder. Most were stopped before they reached the office they were sent to, and no injuries have been reported.

The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are running the investigation. "The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating a series of suspicious mailings sent to various addresses nationwide, including secretary of state offices and their related election offices, and congressional offices," the FBI said. "Some of the letters contained an unknown substance, and we are working closely with our law enforcement partners to respond to each incident."

How wide the mailing ran

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that more than 100 such letters are in the U.S. mail system. Reports put the congressional targets at more than three dozen members, from both parties. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was among those targeted, and letters were also sent toward Senators Alex Padilla, Chris Murphy, Mike Rounds, Pete Ricketts and Ted Cruz. In the House, the offices of Hakeem Jeffries, Ritchie Torres and Tom Suozzi were among those hit, and a staffer in Rep. Jimmy Panetta's Santa Cruz office opened one envelope, cleared the room and called 911.

Election offices were targeted too, in at least 15 states. Investigators say the letters were processed through a mail facility in north Texas and carried a "Thinking of You" postmark, and staff were warned to watch for plain white envelopes with those markings.

Offices evacuated, tests so far negative

On Monday, Oct. 19, the Leesburg, Virginia office of Rep. Suhas Subramanyam was evacuated after an envelope with a suspicious substance arrived. The office was cleared quickly and preliminary testing showed the powder was not hazardous. "Acts of political intimidation have no place in our country," Subramanyam said.

Three Arizona Democrats, Reps. Adelita Grijalva, Greg Stanton and Yassamin Ansari, said on Oct. 19 that law enforcement had told them over the weekend about letters sent toward their offices. The letters for Grijalva and Ansari went to former office addresses, and the letter for Stanton was intercepted before delivery. The FBI's Phoenix field office and the Arizona Department of Homeland Security alerted them. "We will not be intimidated, and we'll keep doing the work that Arizonans elected us to do," the three wrote in a joint statement.

In Kentucky, an envelope with a letter and a white, powdery substance was delivered to the State Board of Elections office in Frankfort on the morning of Oct. 16. Taylor Brown, the board's general counsel, told The Courier Journal that preliminary tests found the substance was not hazardous, though investigators have not yet said what it was. "We take these threats seriously, but we're not going to let them deter safe and secure elections from occurring in Kentucky," Brown said.

The pattern started earlier in the month. On Oct. 15, the Arizona Executive Tower at the state Capitol in Phoenix was evacuated after staff in the Secretary of State's Office opened an envelope holding white powder. Two days before that, the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office in Baton Rouge reported a similar package. Election officials in Ohio and Oklahoma reported suspicious packages earlier in October as well. No injuries were reported in any of those cases.

Why it matters

The mailings land at the busiest point of the election calendar. Early voting is under way in many states, and election offices are processing ballots and mail at full stretch. Every envelope treated as a possible threat slows that work. Brendan Donahue, deputy chief inspector at the Postal Inspection Service, said the service will bring all of its resources to the investigation.

Near the November 2024 elections, letters with white powder went to election officials in 16 states, and the powder turned out to be flour or baking soda. Near the November 2023 elections, letters sent to election offices in Georgia, Oregon and Washington held trace amounts of fentanyl and disrupted vote counting, but injured no one. The 2001 anthrax letters, which killed five people, are why any white powder in an official envelope is treated as dangerous until a lab says otherwise.

What happens next

No suspect has been named and no total count has been confirmed in public. Investigators are working backward from the shared features of the letters, above all the north Texas processing point. Congressional offices have been told how to handle suspect mail, and election officials in the states that were hit are screening deliveries. The open questions are who sent the letters, whether every one of them held the same substance, and whether more are still moving through the mail.