A suspicious letter addressed to the White House and "similar" to an apparently poison-laced letter sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been intercepted, the Secret Service said today.
"The White House mail screening facility intercepted a letter addressed to the White House that was similar to letters previously addressed to Mayor Bloomberg in New York," Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said.
"This letter has been turned over to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force for testing and investigation," Donovan said in a short statement sent to AFP.
Two letters sent last week -- one to Bloomberg and one to an official with the gun laws group he helped found, Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- appeared to be laced with ricin, according to preliminary tests, New York police said.
Bloomberg told CBS late Wednesday that the letter sent to him was "obviously" meant to show opposition to his lobbying for tighter gun laws.
Bloomberg said he was "not angry" about the letters, and that the incident did not change the deadly realities of mass gun ownership in the United States.
"There's 12,000 people that are going to get killed this year with guns, and 19,000 that are going to commit suicide with guns, and we're not going to walk away from those efforts," he said.
"I know I speak for all of the close to 1,000 mayors in the mayors' coalition against guns. This is a scourge on the country that we just have to make sure that we get under control and eliminate."
The killing of 20 children and six adults in the Newtown elementary school shooting rampage in Connecticut led to widespread calls for tighter gun laws.
But under pressure from the NRA, Congress failed to pass even heavily watered-down legislation drafted in the wake of the tragedy.
