Washington — A suspicious letter was found Thursday in the Capitol office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, but police said initial tests on a powdery substance in the envelope were negative for any hazardous substance.
"While we do not know what the substance is, we do know that the substance is not hazardous," Lt. Dan Nichols, a spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police, told reporters.
He said Daschle was "well aware of the situation and he is safe."
Nichols declined to provide any information about the postmark or other identifying information on the piece of mail, which had been opened a few hours earlier.
However, he said the initial tests did not yield information about whether the powdery substance had once been hazardous whether, for example, it contained anthrax spores that had been rendered harmless when the mail was irradiated.
Additional tests will be conducted on the material inside the letter, Nichols said.
"The material is not hazardous right now," he said.
Nichols described the letter to Daschle as threatening in nature. He said the powdery material was being turned over to the FBI.
He also said police would notify the U.S. Postal Service, and said he expected officials there would check facilities where the letter has traveled on its way to Daschle's office in the Capitol.
The Capitol was closed briefly, but not evacuated.
Nichols said several times that the substance had been tested and found not to be hazardous.
Even so, the letter instantly raised concern, since Daschle was the recipient of an anthrax-tainted letter in October that exposed more than two dozen people to spores and led to the closure of the Hart Senate Office Building across the street from the Capitol.
This time, the letter was opened in the Capitol itself, somewhere in Daschle's second-floor suite. Ranit Schmelzer, Daschle's spokeswoman, said the South Dakotan was not present in the room where the letter was opened.
As a precaution, police cordoned off an area around Daschle's office, as well as the area immediately above on the Capitol's third floor.
The development was also a reminder of how little has been learned about the culprits behind the anthrax attacks that shook the nation last fall after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
All told, officials have confirmed 18 cases of anthrax in Washington and elsewhere since October 11 inhalation and seven of the less-serious skin form. Five people have died.
Two anthrax-tainted letters have been discovered in the congressional mail system: the one opened in Daschle office in October and a second one addressed to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
The two contained anthrax and identical handwriting.
Those letters said in part, "09-11-01 You can not stop us. We have this anthrax." They concluded: "Allah is great."
The Leahy letter was found by government investigators Nov. 16 among mail quarantined after the discovery of the first Daschle letter.
The anthrax in that letter was refined to such a high degree that it "literally jumped off the slide," investigators said, as they tried to examine in under a microscope.
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