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CNN Live At Daybreak

Trace Amounts of Anthrax Found at Justice Department Mail Processing Facility

Aired October 29, 2001 - 07:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time now to go behind the headlines. We start with the latest on the spread of anthrax through the nation's capital.

Jonathan Karl is on Capitol Hill to describe the new anthrax site -- good morning, Jon.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, that new site is actually several miles away from Washington in the town of Landover, Maryland, a mail processing facility that handles mail that goes to the Justice Department, including, of course, top officials at the Justice Department like the attorney general and the FBI director. That facility, trace amounts of anthrax found. So what they have done is they have shut the facility down. They will be testing the workers there and they will also be giving them a 10 day supply of antibiotics.

They've also shut down the main mail facility at the Justice Department itself, the main mail room, so they can test that and take a look for possible signs of anthrax at that location.

This follows on signs of anthrax at the facility that handles mail for the Supreme Court and even a trace at the Supreme Court itself. So the Supreme Court, which is located right up here on Capitol Hill, will actually be meeting at a separate courthouse for the first time since that building was opened in 1935.

Meanwhile, there's also been several locations here on Capitol Hill itself, as you know, where they have found anthrax. We have a map of the Capitol complex. You can see in addition to the first signs, which were in the Hart Building at Senator Daschle's office, in the mail room in the Dirksen Building. Now over the weekend they have also found some anthrax over on the House side in one of the main House office buildings, the Longworth Building. Three congressman, in the offices of three congressmen they have found trace amounts of anthrax. That's not necessarily a surprise because they had found earlier anthrax at that Ford Office Building, which has the mail room, again, that handles the mail for the Longworth Building.

Now, nobody knows if this means there are more anthrax letters out there or there's simply a problem with cross contamination. The common denominator in all these sites, from the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, Capitol Hill, is that Brentwood mail facility where Tom Daschle's letter came through. So what investigators are looking into is whether or not there was cross-contamination from that letter or whether or not there may be other letters out there -- Paula.

ZAHN: What is the likelihood of there being other letters out there?

KARL: Well, the working assumption for a while up here has been that there would be other letters out there. And what they have done is, as you know, they stopped all mail delivery on Capitol Hill on that Monday when Tom Daschle's letter was first found. And what they're doing now is trying to go through all of the other mail in all the other offices to see if there is another letter out there. And they have assumed for some time that there would be another letter. But again, no proof yet. No sign of another anthrax letter.

ZAHN: All right, Jonathan Karl, thanks so much for that update.

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