The FBI, US Postal Inspection Service and Capitol Police are investigating letters, some of which have been intercepted before reaching their destination.
Page A215From§Eachthe morning edition — 17 October 2026
Administration axes election-threat unit, Republican senators start receiving the threats it no longer tracks.
As it ran on the front
I went to the post office to mail the renewal for my car registration — the form with the box that wants a return address — and I didn't have a label, so I stood at the counter trying to remember my own zip code like a man accused of something. I got the stamp. On the way out, the rack by the door had this morning's paper folded open to a page that had nothing to do with my car.
That page, from the New York Post, today, said a congressman from California got an envelope mailed from New York with a return address linked to something called the DSA, and powder inside, the kind the FBI is now checking alongside the Postal Inspection Service and Capitol Police. A return address linked to a group isn't the same as one belonging to it. The paper didn't say the group sent it. It said the address was linked, and I'd rather leave that word where the paper left it.…
…(cont) I have to go back a little for the order. On October 1st, the Guardian reported the administration had let go of the bodies built to look into direct threats to U.S. elections from foreign actors and from people already here — the paper's language, not mine. That's on the record; I won't retype it.
Today the list runs longer. The Post has Senator Cruz and Senator Collins both getting the powder — joining a growing list, their phrase, not CBS's; CBS, the same day, said only that federal investigators are looking into letters with unknown substances sent to state election officials and to congressional offices, no adjective on the word investigation at all. The Hill's fuller count: Senator Klobuchar, Senator Rounds, Senator Ricketts, Senator Smith, Senator Cruz, and more than fifteen House members, offices hit Friday. The Collins letter carries no day in the paper that has it. I'm not saying it wasn't Friday. I'm saying the sheet in my hand doesn't tell me that.
On the way home I sat through the toll plaza that lost its cash lane two summers back. Six lanes narrow to two ramps now, electronic, and the light changes on its own clock whether or not the car ahead has a transponder. Nobody's posted at that gate. The gate goes up anyway. I came home and read a wire story with three agency names in the same sentence — FBI, Postal Inspection Service, Capitol Police — and not one of them listed ahead of the others.
This shape isn't new. In October 2018, the Secret Service caught two packages addressed to a former president and a former secretary of state before they went anywhere; a third turned up at a cable news building and cleared the floor; a fourth carried a sitting congresswoman's name on the return label of a package meant for someone else, wrong address and all. A directory did the whole job then.
So was the office let go on October 1st built for this shape of letter, or a different threat with a different shape — foreign, the paper said, and domestic terrorism — with nothing in what I read naming a county clerk's office or a senator's desk? I don't have that answer.
I was almost out the post office door a second time today — stamps, this trip — when the clerk called after me. Excuse me, she said, you'll want your receipt. I said I meant to ask something first: the letters on the news — who's running that, the FBI, the Post Office, or the Capitol Police? She said she just works the counter. I told her so does everybody else in this story, far as I can tell.
“They tore down the shop built to watch election mail for threats and called it savings, and the savings landed on their own senators' desks — Ted Cruz and Susan Collins opening envelopes same as any county clerk would. Three agencies get named in this case and not one of them is listed in charge, and that's what it looks like when the watching stops and doesn't get put back on its own.”
“Three agencies on this — the FBI, the Postal Inspection Service, Capitol Police — that's not neglect, that's coverage, more than one specialized office ever had. Did we deprioritize the election-threat unit? We reallocated toward the fraud concerns people actually raised. The fact that a Republican senator's now opening mail with a letter opener and a prayer — that's, well, that part doesn't sound like the win I was describing, does it, no, never mind, the system's working, basically.”
Earlier in this story
- Federal officials dismantle election-threat unit, learn Republican offices are also on the mailing list By Lou · the afternoon edition, 16 October 2026
- Federal officials disband election-threat unit, then investigate powdery letters sent to election offices By Lou · the evening edition, 16 October 2026
The receipts
Federal investigators said they are looking into suspicious letters containing unknown substances that were mailed to state election officials and congressional offices.
Several lawmakers said Friday their offices across the country had received suspicious mailings following reports earlier this week of letters containing unknown substances at U.S. election offices. Sens.
The envelope was sent from New York and appeared similar to other letters being investigated by federal authorities.
· Trump officials abandon effort to investigate election threats, experts warn from the morgue, 1 Oct 2026
· The United States Secret Service intercepts two suspicious packages described as "potential explosive devices" addressed to former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. from the morgue, 24 Oct 2018
· Five arrested on explosives and terrorism offences in RAF Fairford operation from the morgue, 27 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.