New suspicious packages found addressed to Cory Booker, James Clapper

Bomb Threat

The president’s tweet came shortly before the DOJ said they have a suspect in custody, without revealing more details.

President Donald Trump suggested Friday that a wave of suspicious packages sent to his most prominent critics are an attempt to slow Republican early voting, floating the theory shortly before the Justice Department announced that one person is in custody related to the investigation.

“Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this ‘Bomb’ stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows – news not talking politics,” the president tweeted. “Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!”

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Trump’s tweet — his latest complaint about how he’s been treated unfairly during the furor over the potential explosives — came about an hour before DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores tweeted, “We can confirm one person is in custody. We will hold a press conference at the Department of Justice at 2:30pm ET.”

She did not provide any more information about the suspect or a motive.

Earlier on Friday morning, authorities said they had discovered two more packages sent to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Suspicious packages containing what appear to be explosive materials were sent this week to prominent critics of the president throughout the country. Friday’s discoveries marked the 11th and 12th such packages recovered.

The package to Booker was headed to the Democratic senator’s office in Camden, New Jersey, according to a person familiar with the discovery who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information.

The FBI, in a tweet, confirmed they recovered the suspicious package to Booker in Florida.

The package addressed to Clapper was found at a post office in New York City, according to the Associated Press. It was addressed to him at CNN’s New York headquarters, where Clapper is a paid contributor.

The bureau is currently investigating at least 10 other suspicious packages, sent to several individuals who have been the target of frequent criticism from President Donald Trump, including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and former CIA Director John Brennan.

Brennan’s package was also addressed to him at the New York headquarters of CNN, where he does not work. The network’s New York offices were evacuated on Wednesday following the suspicious package’s discovery.

During a phone interview on CNN on Friday morning, Clapper said that “it’s not a surprise” that a suspicious package was addressed to him. He added that those who have been critical of Trump should be on “extra alert and take some precautions.”

“Whether or not this is just only intended to sow fear, intimidate, that sort of thing or they are for real,” Clapper said, “I do want to just echo one thing that John Brennan said, and that is this is not going to silence the administration’s critics.”

Critics of the president have cast blame for the flurry of suspected pipe bombs on Trump’s incendiary rhetoric directed against the media and his political opponents, suggesting that it could have encouraged someone to target the president’s opponents. The White House and Trump’s allies have dismissed such theories and some have suggested that the packages were sent by someone intending to make the president look bad in the weeks leading up to next month’s midterm elections.

In a tweet posted just after 3 a.m. Friday morning, Trump bashed CNN’s coverage of the suspicious packages and complained that he is held to an unfair standard as president that his critics are not subject to.

“Funny how lowly rated CNN, and others, can criticize me at will, even blaming me for the current spate of Bombs and ridiculously comparing this to September 11th and the Oklahoma City bombing,” Trump said in a tweet posted just after 3 a.m. “Yet when I criticize them they go wild and scream, ‘it’s just not Presidential!’”

Ryan Hutchins contributed to this report.