Expert offers insight into recent suspicious mail incidents in Delaware

Background

On Thursday, October 4, 2001, just 24 days after September 11, the Florida Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first case of inhalational anthrax in the United States in more than 25 years.

Then in DC on October 15, a staff member opened a letter in Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle’s office, and Malet was one of 40 people in the office exposed to anthrax spores.

Federal prosecutors named US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases Dr. Bruce E. Ivins as the attack’s perpetrator in 2008 after he died by suicide.

Transcript:

Bouthier: What was that like to work in 2001 when that happened, and how does it feel compared to today? That sounds like a really terrifying instance.

Malet: I think in 2001, everyone was caught off guard for the most part. There was concern before 9/11 about what we would now call homeland security issues. There were a lot of exercises done looking at potential threats like anthrax being sent in the mail. There actually had been studies about that, but in a practical way, the average government office wasn’t looking out for something like that, even after 9/11. It was a surprise, and it was really I think only because, …the first few mailings went to media offices that there was so much attention paid to it. So when we received the mailing in 2001, the Capitol Police had already responded to multiple hoax mailings that day of people who’d sent in baking powder. So by the time they got to our office, they were just walking in without any protective gear, expecting it to be another hoax, and it wasn’t. Most of the office was not tested. They told us just to go home. A lot of people insisted on tests, and other people turned up testing positive the next day. We were in lockdown in the office for several hours, and at one point they sent they snuck a pizza delivery guy in because everybody was hungry. It wasn’t until hours later that somebody thought he might have been exposed and they should go test him and track down his footsteps to make sure he hadn’t been getting anthrax all over DC. So it was definitely a very steep learning curve at the time that nobody was really prepared for. I think it’s different now because there’s so much screening of the mail. But if something were to actually get through, I’m not sure how much training people would have to to actually deal with a lockdown situation.

Bouthier: I started seeing reports, including for Delaware’s own election office, that they had received a package with a mysterious substance, and that elected officials, across the country, had received these… given your experience and expertise, what was your first reaction to to hearing about that, to seeing those reports?

Malet: It was really notable that this happened on the 25th anniversary of the anthrax attack on the Capitol in 2001. So it’s possible that somebody was trying to get publicity just based on that anniversary date. But we also have the midterm elections coming up in a couple weeks, and I was also thinking back to 2018, the last Trump midterm elections, when there was somebody who was sending pipe bombs in the mail to different members of Congress and media offices around the country. So it could just be a coincidence rather than you know callback to 2001. I was also thinking about the fact that anthrax is, which is the concern about white powder in the mail to members of Congress, that was a pretty unique event. Anthrax is really hard to come by, but we do have other cases over the years where people mail hazardous substances to senators. There’s a toxic substance called ricin, which is made from castor beans, that has been sent in the mail to numerous senators since 2001. I think the last time was 2013, and sometimes that makes it through mail screenings, and it’s incredibly lethal. So …I haven’t heard that any of these powdered mailings have been identified as anthrax, but that doesn’t mean that they’re safe.

Bouthier: Your research today focuses on political violence…when this happens, what kind of notice is put on some of these packages have been intercepted? Can you tell me what that looks like once this kind of notice has been put out, or maybe the first couple of these packages get opened?

Malet: So after the 2001 anthrax attacks, the federal government instituted a lot of mail safety screenings. There’s biological threat screenings that they use. They radiate mail that’s going to at least Capitol Hill, congressional offices. State offices for senators are a little bit different because the mail is handled by the local postal authorities, and they have different procedures. So I know that some of the mailings that were intercepted this week were actually made it through this week to to Senator Rochester’s office in Delaware and Senator Gillibrand’s office in New York might not have been detected, so there are some inconsistencies, with the way this is approached, depending on whether something would go to a federal office in D.C. or a federal office around the country. And there were also several of these envelopes, apparently or packages, which went to different state elections offices in several different states, so it’s not clear that those would be subject to the same kind of screening.

Bouthier: The FBI is investigating, and the commissioner’s office has temporarily relocated. Delaware says election preparation remains uninterrupted…

Malet: We’re seeing an increasing number of threats around the country made against elections officials, and I’m sure that you know every state and local office has some protocols in place. I don’t think they would let people back in if their security sweeps had shown that there was anything hazardous, in those offices. So that would lead me to think that the situation is not anthrax or ricin or something that’s actually been sent because the offices would be shut down for decontamination. I know a couple of other states. I think Wisconsin they had to evacuate the facilities as well. So we’re not hearing so far about any confirmed cases, which I think would have been announced. So at this point, it seems to be more of an intimidation or terror campaign rather than actual biological attack.

Bouthier: Obviously, security and investigating thoroughly is very important. …but my impression is that there’s been, an increased suspicion of federal interference. I’m wondering what that dynamic looks like, and I know you can’t speak for any particular state office. But what that dynamic indicates now, as there’s this general distrust from some in federal government interference in elections, and there’s federal officials that have to be investigating these incidents.

Malet: I think it’s a complex problem because you have had increasing distrust in just elections officials in general that has been stoked by years of claims that elections were going to be rigged, and but then you’re also getting a situation where the the responses And maybe there’s sometimes you have responses of federal officials taking over election offices, and you can see how that would lead to to distrust amplifying with concerns of interference in elections right now. So it’s possible that you know without being able to really speculate about who’s done this or what they have in mind, that just creating further doubt about the integrity of elections procedures could be somebody’s motive.

Bouthier: What will you be following or listening for in terms of these investigations? 

Malet: I would worry about copycat attacks because that’s something that definitely happens every time you get some incident like this. People realize it’s a way to get publicity, so I would probably look for more instances of suspicious powder being sent out. Unfortunately, to different government offices, to elections offices. After that, it’s probably going to be a matter of some weeks, as they conduct investigations to try to figure out who did this. And there have been cases, anthrax in 2001, took seven years for them to actually identify the perpetrator. I think the one that happened in 2003, 2004, there were some ricin mailings to the U.S. Senate. I’m not sure that they ever actually did identify the perpetrator for those.

Bouthier: From the anthrax attacks, and the attacks following that, how have those affect the the relationship between politics and security?

Malet: There was a shooting at the U.S. Capitol, not political, back in 1998. So there were already barriers going up between lawmakers and the public. Tourists used to just be able to walk into the Capitol and go eat in the same restaurant as members of Congress, just get tours all around the building, or wander around on their own. Now the public can’t enter the Capitol complex. Just a couple months before the anthrax attack, we had a bakery in Georgetown in D.C. send us cookies to congratulate the Senator on becoming the leader, and everybody just ate them without really worrying about it. …every time there’s a security issue, it just creates these new barriers between the public and their elected officials, and that probably has something to do with the increasing distrust as well, just because there isn’t that as much regular interaction.