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CNN Saturday Morning News

Officials Investigate Source of Latest Anthrax-Laced Letter

Aired November 17, 2001 - 11:11   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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: The FBI is testing a new letter today, one they believe contains anthrax. CNN congressional correspondent Kate Snow is on that story at Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The suspicious letter, addressed to another Democrat on Capitol Hill. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a statement, the FBI said the letter appears to contain anthrax. The as-yet-unopened letter has an October 9, 2001, Trenton, New Jersey, postmark and appears in every respect to be similar to the other anthrax-laced letters.

Senate sources say the handwriting on the letter addressed to Senator Leahy is strikingly similar to the writing on the letter sent to Majority Leader Tom Daschle. The two letters are postmarked from the same Trenton post office on the same day.

The new letter was found at a warehouse in northern Virginia, where investigators this week began sifting through 250 barrels of unopened congressional mail. It's unclear whether the letter was ever actually delivered to Senator Leahy's office in the Russell Senate Office Building. Congressional mail was gathered and handed over to the FBI after the letter containing anthrax was opened last month in Senator Daschle's office.

In a statement Friday, Senator Leahy said of authorities, "I am confident they are taking the appropriate steps and that eventually they will find this person. Our Senate leaders and officers did the right thing in isolating the Senate's mail."

A spokesman for Leahy says no one in the office has been ill nearly five weeks after the letter was removed from Capitol Hill. Public health officials are confident there's little risk.

DR. GREG MARTIN, CAPITOL PHYSICIAN'S OFFICE: The first two weeks are our most dangerous period, and we're well beyond that now. We've seen no evidence of cutaneous or inhalation disease in any of our patients at the Capitol, and we are quite confident that we will not see any because of this letter.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SNOW: But there have been two deaths in Washington, and three other cases of inhalation anthrax. And all along investigators have suspected that perhaps there could be at least one other letter contaminated out there in the Washington area.

This letter to Senator Leahy, they're hoping, could provide some valuable clues about its author -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: Kate, I was just curious, why is it we don't know if this letter had been delivered or not? And was it a case that all the mail, when this was first suspected, was gathered up -- even in offices -- and then placed in barrels? I'm a little confused.

SNOW: That's -- right, let me lay that out for you. When the letter arrived at Senator Daschle's office and when it was opened on Monday, October 15, the anthrax came spilling out and the authorities were alerted.

At that point, they told every office here on Capitol Hill to gather up all your mail, anything that hasn't been opened, send it back to the mail rooms. And then they took all the mail from the offices, from the mail rooms, from a mail facility just down the road here, and they took it all to Virginia in those barrels -- 250 barrels which they're not looking through very painstakingly.

So it's unclear whether that letter was in Leahy's office or maybe it never made it to his office. It might have been in a mail room or at that off-site facility before it was taken away and now found out in Virginia -- Marty.

SAVIDGE: OK, I got it. Thanks very much...

SNOW: OK.

SAVIDGE: ... Kate Snow.

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