WASHINGTON _ The 10 suspicious devices mailed to prominent political figures this week have failed to ignite, leading investigators to believe they may have been intended to spread fear rather than inflict injury or death, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation.
Still, the same sources warned Thursday that similar devices, resembling small pipe bombs, could be lethal and are believed to be within the postal system.
Investigators reported intercepting three packages Thursday, two sent to former Vice President Joe Biden and one to actor Robert De Niro, bringing the total to 10. President Donald Trump has declined to call the threatening mailing an act of domestic terrorism, and has pivoted from his initial plea for national unity to blaming the media for stoking anger in the nation.
The latest would-be pipe bombs, which did not detonate, were similar to the crude devices intercepted Monday that were sent to former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., former CIA Director John Brennan, investor George Soros and Rep. Maxine Waters, a Los Angeles Democrat. All of the recipients, including Biden and De Niro, have been critics of Trump and have been assailed by him, including in his frequent political rallies.
Though Trump joked at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday night that he had to "behave," the latest news did not stop him from blaming the media for fomenting an atmosphere that would drive people to take such action against his most frequent political targets.
"A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News," Trump said in a tweet Thursday morning. "It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!"
Among the recipients of explosive packages early Wednesday was CNN, which Trump regularly lambastes; it received the mailing addressed to Brennan, even though he is a contributor to MSNBC, not CNN.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pushed back against reporters asking whether Trump would change his tone or express regret that his attacks on his perceived political enemies might have encouraged the threats.
"The president is certainly not responsible for sending suspicious packages to someone, no more than Bernie Sanders was responsible for a supporter of his shooting up a Republican baseball field practice last year," Sanders said, referring to an incident when a left-wing activist shot and injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and several other people at a baseball practice in Northern Virginia, near Washington.
On Wednesday at the White House, Trump had read from a prepared statement and denounced the bombing attempts, promising a thorough investigation and calling for unity. That call that rang hollow to many, given his constant attacks on Democrats and other critics, including Clinton and Waters. Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, issued a statement Wednesday that "the President, and especially the White House Press Secretary, should understand their words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that."
By the evening, as Trump spoke to supporters inside a small airplane hangar in Mosinee, Wis., he mixed condemnation of the bomb threats with a blast aimed at putting the onus on the media to provide less critical coverage of his presidency.
"The media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the endless hostility and constant negative _ and oftentimes, false _ attacks and stories," said Trump, prompting the usual chants of "CNN sucks!" from supporters.
The president also exhorted those in the political arena to "stop treating their opponents as morally defective," though he continues at rallies to call his 2016 rival "Crooked Hillary" and routinely encourages calls of "Lock her up," and attacks Waters, an outspoken African-American lawmaker, as a "low-IQ individual."
He made a point of avoiding those standard attacks in Wisconsin, telling the crowd that he was "trying to be nice."
"Do you see how nice I'm behaving tonight? Have you ever seen this?" he said.
According to The Associated Press, the package addressed to Biden was intercepted at a Delaware mail facility. The package to De Niro was reported to law enforcement early Thursday morning by security personnel in the Manhattan building where his entertainment company, TriBeCa Productions, is located.
