Posted on 02/07/2004 9:37:59 AM PST by pttttt
Yahoo! News Sat, Feb 07, 2004
Search for Senate Ricin Source Widens
Fri Feb 6, 3:29 PM ET
By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Searches of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's offices in Tennessee have uncovered no ricin or other evidence that might explain how the poison wound up in his Capitol Hill mailroom, officials said Friday.
The senator's six offices in Tennessee reopened Thursday after being closed for two days while the FBI (news - web sites) and other investigators checked the mail and searched for other evidence. Nothing was found, said a federal law enforcement source speaking on condition of anonymity.
The inability to locate a piece of mail connected to the Senate ricin scare has led investigators to expand their probe to include the possibility that someone placed the poison in the mailroom in Frist's Washington office or that it arrived in an envelope or package that moved through the office before the poison was discovered Monday afternoon.
"We are taking a look at every possible angle," said Michael Mason, chief of the FBI's Washington field office.
Mail has been the primary focus of the probe since an intern found a small amount of ricin on a mail-sorting machine in Frist's office. But no further ricin or other evidence was in the stacks of letters nearby.
Investigators now must consider if the ricin was placed on the machine by someone or if it had spilled out of an older letter and been there for a long time. If so, investigators would have to trace the paths of these older letters, some of which may have been destroyed.
The discovery of the poison prompted the closure of three Senate office buildings, two of which reopened Thursday, and decontamination procedures for staff and Capitol police officers who were at the scene. Ricin is a highly toxic substance with no known antidote. It can easily be made from castor beans.
Although no one has become ill from the ricin, nine staffers in Frist's office were asked to submit two blood samples to Navy medical researchers, Frist spokesman Nick Smith said. The aides were told it was to see if they had developed antibodies to the ricin, which might aid in development of an antidote.
Investigators are interviewing people who visited the buildings before the ricin's discovery, as well as employees. They described everyone so far as cooperative.
One Senate aide who was questioned and spoke on condition of anonymity said he had not been contacted for a second round and knew of no other staffers who were being questioned again.
As the investigation progressed, life began returning to normal on Capitol Hill.
The Russell and Hart buildings opened Thursday. Frist said Friday an announcement would be made later in the day on when the third building, the Dirksen building where the ricin was found, was to reopen.
The ricin investigation is not limited to Capitol Hill. Authorities are examining whether there is any link between the toxin found in Frist's office and that mailed in two letters by a self-styled "Fallen Angel" angered by new federal rules requiring longer rest periods for truck drivers.
Those letters were found Oct. 15 at a mail facility in Greenville, S.C., and Nov. 6 at an offsite location where mail is processed for the White House. The "Fallen Angel" author, claiming to be a tanker fleet owner, threatens in both letters to "start dumping" more ricin if the new rules are not repealed.
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From other accounts, the Senate ricin was apparently a powder fine enough to be confused with dust. I don't know if that would be hard to produce or what it would take; hopefully particle size is being analyzed. Back when they were declaring things, Iraq declared 10 liters of liquid ricin and had been trying it out in artillery shells.
A very long time ago when they were more into such things, the US and UK were also looking at a ricin bomb.
Some points from this article:
1. The Senate ricin may not have arrived recently, but may have been there for a while.
2. The ricin may or may not have arrived in Frist's mailroom via mail. There is no direct evidence of a letter or package that it might have come in.
3. There is no reported evidence connecting the Senate ricin with the ricin from the "Fallen Angel" ricin episode. (Also, maybe Fallen Angel went down as reported, but the idea of truckers protesting in this fashion seems a little strange. But then again, after 9-11, trucks were taken seriously as a terror threat.)
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