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Trump calls for unity as US hunts for those behind bomb packages to Obama, Hillary
The packages were similar, the FBI has said: Manila envelopes with bubble wrap interiors, affixed with computer-printed address labels. And all of them had the same return address “DEBBIE WASSERMAN SHULTZ (Schultz)”, a lawmaker who headed the Democratic party in 2016.
US president Donald Trump called for unity on Wednesday as a manhunt got underway for those responsible for six suspicious packages containing potentially destructive devices that were mailed or delivered to homes and offices of leading political figures who have been both his most strident critics and targets.
The list of recipients of those packages had grown to six later on Wednesday — former president Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former CIA director John Brennan, former attorney general Eric Holder, Democratic lawmaker Maxine Waters and Democratic donor George Soros.
The packages were similar, the FBI has said: Manila envelopes with bubble wrap interiors, affixed with computer-printed address labels. And all of them had the same return address “DEBBIE WASSERMAN SHULTZ (Schultz)”, a lawmaker who headed the Democratic party in 2016.
And the agency described the devices inside only as “potentially destructive”. But other law enforcement sources suggested each of them was a home-made pipe-bombs, inspired by guides on the internet. There were also reports of powdery substances in the packages raising fears of Anthrax and similar agents.
With no damage to life or property reported, the packages turned into a measure of the political atmosphere of a country just days away from crucial mid-term elections — all of the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, and two-thirds of the states — and Trump’s divisive on-the-stump rhetoric.
“In these times, we have to unify,” Trump said.
It was his first remarks after the discovery of the packages, attempting to address questions about his rhetoric that had come under unprecedented but predictable scrutiny in the aftermath of incidents had seemed ed to some as catastrophic as September 11, 2001, better known as 9/11 attacks.
“We have to come together and send one very clear, strong and unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America,” he said.
The president did not name any of those targeted and made no attempt to reach out to them. But he went on the attack a few hours later.
Trump said to cheering supporters at a political rally in Wisconsin that both sides need to do their bit. Stop calling political opponents “morally defective” he argued, adding, in a bit, no one should “carelessly compare political opponents to historical villains, which is done all the time .. got to stop.”
Liberals opposed to this administration have often called Trump autocratic and despotic, comparing him to some of the most heinous figures in history. Some other members of his administrations have received similar attention, which has rankled the president as he has shown.
The president went on, in his purported attempt to call for peace on a day of disturbing developments, to urge the media to play a responsible role, without even once condemning or mentioning the package that was delivered to CNN’s New York offices, which was meant for Brennan.
