Federal officials dismantle election-threat unit, learn Republican offices are also on the mailing list

…(cont) Hang on. It's in the coat, the coat's in the car, the car's the one with the fan belt — no, here, I dog-eared it. October 1st, the Guardian. I wrote the sentence down the way they printed it: the administration "has abandoned key security bodies meant to investigate direct threats to US elections by foreign actors and domestic terrorists." Former officials say so. A recent report says so. And the same story says officials have been actively focused on unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud by noncitizens, while credible threats were overlooked. Overlooked is their word, not mine.

So here's the simple question, and I apologize for how simple it is: when a direct threat arrives, which office opens the envelope?

The day after that story — October 2nd, I had to flip back twice to find it — a Republican-led state election board in Georgia asked the administration to look into Georgia's voting systems. So somebody is looking into something. I wrote "fine" in the margin. I've since put a box around "fine."

Two weeks on, October 15th: the FBI and the Postal Service are investigating letters containing an unknown substance, mailed to election offices. Louisiana. Oklahoma. Ohio. Three states, and in each one a person who runs elections opening the mail at a desk.

Then CBS, this week: the letters went to state election officials and to congressional offices. Then Friday — that's today, I checked the date on my own notebook — NBC reports the investigation has widened, because some Republicans have been identified as targets of the mailings.

Now here's where I need the help, because I keep getting turned around, and I'll show you with the only thing I've got.

There's a toll plaza on my way in. Used to be a fellow in a booth. They took the booth out, put in the machine, and one morning last spring the machine took my dollar and the gate arm stayed down. Behind me, a line. On the barrier there's a sign with a number on it. I called the number from the shoulder, smoking a cigar I shouldn't have, and the recording told me to use the website, and the website told me to call the number. Fifteen minutes, and the honest answer to "who's supposed to help me" turned out to be: the sign. Now, the sign isn't lying to anybody. The sign's doing exactly what a sign does. It just doesn't open anything.

So that's my trouble. The bodies meant to investigate direct threats from domestic terrorists — the report says those were the bodies for this — and the thing that arrived is a letter with an unknown substance in it, mailed to an election office. If the investigating is being done, and the FBI and the Postal Service say it is, which desk is the sign?

Excuse me — sorry, that's my elbow on your door, I'll be out of your way. One more thing and I'll let you go. The report that used that word came out October 1st. The letters turned up October 15th. Fourteen days between them, and now the targets include members of the majority party, which is the reason the thing got bigger on a Friday. So when a congressman's office calls to ask who's handling it, they're calling the body in the Guardian's sentence. And the word in that sentence, the one I came in here about, the one I've got written down right here — abandoned.