'Another Suspicious Package' To CNN Is Intercepted In Atlanta
Updated at 1:51 p.m. ET
A suspicious package addressed to CNN's office in Atlanta was intercepted on Monday, the network said, adding that all of its mail is being screened off-site.
The announcement comes three days after the FBI arrested Cesar Altieri Sayoc and accused him of trying to send improvised explosive devices to high-profile Democrats and media targets. He is facing charges for five federal crimes, including the illegal mailing of explosives.
The Atlanta package is "similar in appearance to the others" that were addressed to CNN, the FBI said shortly after noon on Monday.
Packages linked to Sayoc have used the address of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's office in South Florida as their return address. Despite Sayoc's arrest, the authorities have warned that there may be other packages still working their way through the postal system.
Sayoc, 56, is due to appear in federal court in Florida Monday afternoon for a hearing. Prosecutors are expected to try to move his case to New York, where most of the packages were discovered.
The latest package was stopped at an Atlanta post office before it reached CNN, according to the news network's president, Jeff Zucker.
"There is no imminent danger to CNN Center," Zucker said, in a statement about the package. He added that CNN's screening process is working.
"All mail, at all CNN domestic bureaus, is being screened at off-site facilities as of last Wednesday, so this package would NOT have come directly to the CNN Center, even if it hadn't been intercepted first," Zucker said.
Sayoc was identified in part from a latent fingerprint on one of the packages. The FBI says DNA evidence from at least two of the packages also points to him as the suspect.
Several of the packages passed through the U.S. Postal Service's Royal Palm Mail Processing Center in Opa-Locka, Fla. — a center that routes mail and packages sent from Miami-Dade County, where Sayoc was living at the time of his arrest.
In Miami, member station WLRN reports:
"Investigators are also analyzing Sayoc's impounded van in which he lived and allegedly built the pipe bombs because it contains a trove of valuable evidence, from explosive-device materials to credit-card receipts. They say the vehicle, covered with attacks on critics of President Donald Trump, directly links the 56-year-old Aventura man to the crime of mailing explosive devices from South Florida to the Democratic targets."
Sayoc now faces charges that range from transporting explosives across state lines and illegally mailing explosives to threatening former presidents, threatening interstate communications and assaulting officers of the federal government.
The list of people who were sent packages includes:
Former President Barack Obama
Former Vice President Joe Biden
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Former CIA Director John Brennan (via CNN)
Former Attorney General Eric Holder
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
George Soros, the billionaire donor to Democratic causes
Actor Robert De Niro, a Trump critic
Billionaire donor and activist Tom Steyer
[Copyright 2018 NPR]
