Investigators found a letter on Friday addressed to Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, which the FBI said appeared to contain anthrax. It would be the second letter bearing the deadly germ known to have been sent to Capitol Hill.
The contaminated letter was postmarked Oct. 9 from Trenton, New Jersey, as was the one sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and contains similar handwriting, investigators said.
One law-enforcement official said the return address -- a fourth-grade class at a nonexistent school in New Jersey -- also was the same.
Four people, including two Washington postal workers, have died from inhaled anthrax.
But until Friday, only one letter carrying the germ inside the envelope had been found in Washington.
The letter was discovered Friday afternoon in a batch of segregated mail away from Congress, said Susan Neely, speaking for the Office of Homeland Security. She said no one in contact with the letter had become sick.
Investigators have said for weeks that there may be another anthrax-tainted letter. They have been hunting through unopened mail that has been under quarantine since postal workers were diagnosed with inhaled anthrax.
Although terrorism from abroad has not been ruled out, officials believe the anthrax attacks came from someone in the United States. However, they have not discovered the source of the letters. The second letter sent to a high-profile Democrat adds to the thin body of evidence.
"FBI and US Postal Service investigators examining sequestered congressional mail have another letter which appears to contain anthrax," the FBI said in a statement Friday night.
The letter to Leahy, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, "appears in every respect to be similar to the other anthrax-laced letters," the FBI said.
It was located in one of more than 250 barrels of unopened mail sent to Capitol Hill and held since the discovery of an anthrax letter to Daschle on Oct. 15, the FBI said.
FBI Director Robert Mueller called the Vermont senator at his Washington-area home to tell him about the letter.
"I appreciate his call," Leahy said. "This is a law enforcement matter, and I will leave it to the proper authorities to report what they know and the procedures they are taking. I am confident they are taking the appropriate steps and that eventually they will find this person."
Hazardous materials experts began sorting the quarantined congressional mail earlier this week at a facility in northern Virginia, the FBI said.
Preliminary tests were positive for anthrax from the letter, the FBI said. Further testing was being done.
Traces of anthrax have been found in about a dozen senators' offices in the Hart Senate Office Building across the street from the Capitol. That building remains closed for cleaning with chlorine dioxide gas.
Three other letters with anthrax inside have been found, all of them bearing similarities. Letters to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post appear to be photocopies. The third letter went to Daschle. All had block lettering and used the date style of 09-11-01.
Leahy's office is in a different building, but it's not clear where the letter was when mail deliveries to Congress ceased Oct. 15.
The most recent hot spots were in mailrooms at Howard University in Washington, in several more congressional offices and at the State Department's mail facility in Sterling, Virginia.
Three other letters with anthrax inside have been found, all of them bearing similarities. Letters to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post appear to be photocopies. The third letter went to Daschle. All had block lettering and used the date style of 09-11-01.
Investigators also believe the anthrax in those three letters is the same Ames strain that is common to the US.
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