Lofgren’s San Jose office was cordoned off and Panetta’s Santa Cruz staff found powder in an envelope, part of a nationwide wave of mailings to lawmakers and election offices less than three weeks before Election Day.
By Staff Reporter
A bomb squad cordoned off Representative Zoe Lofgren’s district office in San Jose on Friday, and a staff member for Representative Jimmy Panetta opened an envelope containing a white powder in Santa Cruz, as a federal investigation into suspicious mailings sent to election offices and members of Congress reached Northern California.
No one was reported injured. Local authorities said the substances tested so far were not hazardous. But the incidents, which came less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 general election, added Bay Area offices to a list of targets that by Friday evening included at least 26 state election offices and dozens of congressional offices across the country, according to NBC News.
San Jose and Santa Clara
San Jose police officers responded to a report of a suspicious package in the 600 block of North First Street just after 11 a.m., ABC7 News reported. The Police Department’s bomb squad and the San Jose Fire Department went to the building, and red tape blocked access while they worked. Police later said the substance retrieved from the envelope “has been determined to be non-hazardous,” but did not identify it and said the investigation was continuing.
“My San Jose office received a suspicious letter through the mail today. Law enforcement was immediately called. The investigation is ongoing. All of my staffers are safe. I will have more to say after the investigation is complete,” Ms. Lofgren, a Democrat who has represented San Jose in Congress since 1995, said in a statement.
Later Friday, emergency crews in protective gear were seen at the Santa Clara office of Representative Ro Khanna, ABC7 reported. The Santa Clara Police Department did not confirm the nature of its response, saying only that officers were “aware of the situation and it remains an active investigation.”
Santa Cruz
In Santa Cruz, a staff member in Mr. Panetta’s Ocean Street office opened an envelope Friday morning as part of her daily routine of responding to constituent mail and found powder inside.
“Upon realizing that there was powder in the envelope, she immediately put the envelope in the garbage can, cleared fellow staff members out of the office, and called 911,” Mr. Panetta said in a statement reported by KTVU. He said that she and her colleagues “have been initially cleared by medical officials,” and later confirmed to ABC7 that the powder was sugar and flour.
Mr. Panetta, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties, condemned the mailing. “Threats, fearmongering, and violence against public servants have become far too common over the past decade and undermine our democracy,” he said. “But these attempts to intimidate us will not deter us from doing our job.”
A national pattern
The California offices were among many that reported similar letters on Friday. NBC News listed Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Panetta and Representatives Linda Sánchez, Laura Friedman and Gil Cisneros, all Southern California Democrats, among more than 20 House members whose home-state offices received letters. Senator Alex Padilla of California said the Postal Service intercepted a suspicious package before it reached his office, KTVU reported.
The mailings were not confined to one party. Representative Kevin Kiley, an independent who represents a district east of Sacramento and caucuses with Republicans, said his district office had also received a letter, NBC reported. Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Rounds of South Dakota said they, too, were targeted.
The F.B.I. and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are leading the investigation. The F.B.I. said in a statement that it was “investigating a series of suspicious mailings sent to various addresses nationwide, including Secretary of State offices and their related election offices.” Deputy Postal Inspector Brendan Donahue told reporters on Thursday that “any threat or attack on election officials is unacceptable,” and that investigators were “working with our partners on identifying the individual or individuals responsible for the letters,” according to KTVU, which cited The Associated Press.
Sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News that law enforcement had not yet traced the origin of the letters, that preliminary field tests had found none of the powder hazardous, and that federal officials appeared to be treating the incidents as connected.
Election offices on alert
Election offices in at least two states, Louisiana and Oklahoma, were evacuated this week after receiving packages with powder, KTVU reported. As of Friday afternoon, California was not among the 26 states whose election offices NBC News listed as having received such packages, though postal inspectors in several states intercepted letters before they were delivered.
The episode echoes earlier mailings. In 2023, election offices in six states received envelopes containing white powder, and similar incidents were reported weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
For California, where county registrars are already mailing ballots to every active registered voter and processing returns, the timing is pointed. Mr. Panetta himself is on the Nov. 3 ballot, facing the Republican business owner Peter Coe Verbica, ABC7 noted.
Federal law makes it a crime to mail threatening communications or to convey false information about a biological or chemical threat, even when the substance proves harmless. Authorities have not said whether they have identified any suspects.
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