A powdery substance was discovered Friday with a threatening letter in a mailroom on the workplaces of Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg, the most recent safety scare because the prosecutor weighs a potential historic indictment of former President Donald Trump, authorities mentioned.
New York Metropolis police and environmental safety officers remoted and eliminated the suspicious letter, and testing “decided there was no harmful substance,” Bragg spokesperson Danielle Filson mentioned. The substance was despatched to a metropolis lab for additional examination, police mentioned.
“Alvin, I’m going to kill you,” the letter mentioned, in keeping with an individual acquainted with the matter. The particular person was not approved to talk publicly about an ongoing investigation and did so on situation of anonymity.
The discovery, in the identical constructing where a grand jury is expected to resume work Monday, got here amid more and more hostile rhetoric from Trump, a Republican who’s holding the primary rally of his 2024 presidential marketing campaign Saturday in Waco, Texas.
Hours earlier, Trump posted on his Reality Social platform that any prison cost in opposition to him might result in “potential loss of life & destruction.”
Trump additionally posted a photograph of himself holding a baseball bat subsequent to an image of Bragg, a Democrat. On Thursday, Trump referred to Bragg, Manhattan’s first Black district lawyer, as an “animal.”
The constructing the place the letter was discovered wasn’t evacuated and enterprise principally went on as common, with prosecutors coming and going and bicycle supply employees dropping off lunch orders. The constructing homes numerous authorities workplaces, together with town’s marriage bureau.
Safety has been heavy across the courtroom buildings and district lawyer’s workplace in current days because the grand jury investigates hush cash paid on Trump’s behalf throughout his 2016 marketing campaign.
Extra cops are on patrol, metallic barricades have been put in alongside the sidewalks and bomb sniffing canines have been making common sweeps of the buildings, which have additionally confronted unfounded bomb threats in current days.
A New York State courtroom spokesman mentioned, “As a result of nature of elevated curiosity in proceedings in New York Metropolis Courthouses, we’ve got elevated safety, each inside and on the perimeter, and officers have been reminded to stay vigilant and preserve situational consciousness.”
In a memo to staff Friday, Bragg mentioned the workplace has additionally been receiving offensive and threatening telephone calls and emails. He thanked his employees of practically 1,600 folks for persevering within the face of “extra press consideration and safety round our workplace“ and mentioned their security stays the highest precedence.
“We’ll proceed to use the legislation evenly and pretty, which is what every of you does each single day,” Bragg wrote.
The Rev. Al Sharpton mentioned he’ll maintain a prayer vigil for Bragg’s security Saturday in Harlem. He and different Black leaders have condemned Trump’s rhetoric about Bragg and billionaire George Soros, who backed a bunch that supported Bragg’s marketing campaign, as “not a dog-whistle however a bullhorn of incendiary and anti-semitic bile.”
The grand jury, convened by Bragg in January, has been investigating Trump’s involvement in a $130,000 fee made in 2016 to porn actor Stormy Daniels to maintain her from going public a few sexual encounter she mentioned she had with Trump years earlier. Trump has denied the declare.
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Related Press author Bobby Caina Calvan contributed to this report.
