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US-POLITICS-POLICE WRAP
Suspect packages target Obama, Clintons
NEW YORK, Oct 24, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Suspicious packages, identified as
potential explosives, addressed to former president Barack Obama and defeated
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have been intercepted by the Secret
Service, officials said Wednesday.
The Secret Service said it recovered a single package addressed to Clinton
in Westchester, a suburb north of Manhattan on Tuesday, and a second package
addressed to the Obama residence in Washington on Wednesday.
Both Democrats remain two of the most high-profile political figures in
the United States, which goes to the polls on November 6 in key midterm
elections seen as a referendum on Republican President Donald Trump.
The White House swiftly condemned what it called “despicable” acts
targeting the two Democrat luminaries.
“The packages were immediately identified during routine mail screening
procedures as potential explosive devices and were appropriately handled as
such,” the Secret Service said in a statement.
“The protectees did not receive the packages nor were they at risk of
receiving them.”
Moments later US news network CNN said it had evacuated its New York
bureau over another suspicious package.
New York police confirmed to AFP that its officers had been called to the
Time Warner Center, where the CNN bureau in the US financial capital is
located, to investigate reports of a suspicious package.
The Secret Service, which provides protection to current and former US
presidents and their families — Clinton is the wife of former president Bill
Clinton — said it had initiated a “full scope criminal investigation.”
The investigation would “leverage all available federal, state, and local
resources” to determine the source of the packages and identify those
responsible, it said.
It was not immediately clear whether Clinton or Obama, who has kept a
family base in Washington after leaving office so that his youngest daughter
can finish high school, were at home when the packages were found.
– Target for right-wingers – The FBI’s field office in New York said it was
“aware” of a suspicious package found in the vicinity” of Clinton’s home in
Chappaqua and that its Joint Terrorism Task Force was investigating.
The incidents come just days after an explosive device found in the
mailbox at the New York home of US billionaire and liberal donor George
Soros, a target of right-wing groups.
An employee of the residence in Bedford, an ultra-wealthy enclave just a
20-minute drive from Westchester, found the package in the mailbox on Monday.
It was later defused by bomb squad technicians.
Born in Hungary, the 88-year-old hedge fund tycoon is one of the world’s
richest men with an estimated net worth of $8.3 billion and a prominent
philanthropist who has become a hate figure for right-wing groups.
Soros supported Clinton, Trump’s rival in the 2016 US presidential
election, and has been accused by nationalists the world over of sponsoring
protests and seeking to push a liberal, multicultural agenda.
His Open Society Foundations on Tuesday condemned the “hateful rhetoric
that dominates politics in the United States and so many countries around the
world,” noting it “breeds extremism and violence.
“In this climate of fear, falsehoods, and rising authoritarianism, just
voicing your views can draw death threats,” it said.
Earlier this month Trump accused Soros of paying demonstrators to protest
against the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was
accused of attempted rape in high school.
Soros has also been falsely accused of funding the caravan of migrants
moving north from Honduras through Mexico en route to the US border.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 2110 hrs