On an otherwise calm Saturday afternoon, I almost wrote off the first Twitter notification I saw of this as more election season hysteria. A “breaking news” site I follow claimed that a package containing the deadly toxin ricin was intercepted after having been sent to the White House, addressed to President Trump.

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1307385956153122816

Only a short time later, the story had indeed popped up on CNN’s website and it appeared to have been substantiated. Somebody had sent such a package (actually an envelope) to Donald Trump and labs had confirmed that the lethal substance was found inside.

A package containing the poison ricin and addressed to President Donald Trump was intercepted by law enforcement earlier this week, according to two law enforcement officials.

Two tests were done to confirm the presence of ricin. All mail for the White House is sorted and screened at an offsite facility before reaching the White House.
The FBI and Secret Service are investigating the matter.

Ricin is a highly toxic compound extracted from castor beans that has been used in terror plots. It can be used in powder, pellet, mist or acid form. If ingested, it causes nausea, vomiting and internal bleeding of the stomach and intestines, followed by failure of the liver, spleen and kidneys, and death by collapse of the circulatory system.

Just to allay everyone’s fears, the package never got anywhere near the President. Whoever the bonehead was that came up with this scheme apparently didn’t know that the Post Office doesn’t just take every letter, package or delivery addressed to the President of the United States and just drop it off in the Oval Office. It all goes through a screening center (unless it’s handed off by a member of the President’s own family) where it is tested for a wide variety of threats. That’s how they identified this package.

Another immediate thought that jumped to mind was that it was awfully coincidental how this story broke shortly after the news that Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away and it was announced that Donald Trump would be nominating a replacement. Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy fans out there, but that’s not at the bottom of this scheme either. As National Review quickly revealed, the package didn’t arrive today. This took place earlier in the week, but the news was only released this afternoon.

An envelope containing ricin and addressed to President Trump was intercepted in White House mail earlier this week, according to reports.

Investigators believe the package was sent from Canada, according to the New York Times.

It is unclear when the envelope was intercepted and no suspects are yet in custody, officials said.

So most reports indicate that the package was intercepted at the facility where all of the President’s mail is processed in the past week or more. The envelope never got near the White House. But the time between when it must have been sent, when it was received and when the news was released means that this has nothing to do with the recent Supreme Court news.

So are we under attack by Canada? As amusing as that might be for the “Blame Canada” folks, it’s hardly a certainty. Anyone dumb enough to try something like this might have been willing to round up an accomplice in Canada or travel there to mail it themselves just to attempt to throw authorities off the scent. Good luck with that. I don’t expect a resolution to this puzzle within days or perhaps even weeks, but our folks are pretty good at ferreting out details far beyond fingerprints. They have obviously already been looking at anything from fingerprints to DNA from the envelope to the ink used to address it and will be retracing the package’s steps. Is it a certainty that it will be solved? Perhaps not, but I’d wager good money that they will.

When we find the answer, however, we may indeed see yet another sign of something that has long been obvious. The hatred for Donald Trump among his ideological detractors has well and truly earned the descriptor of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” With Joe Biden slipping in the polls and the race looking increasingly close, the sicker among the woke may be fearing that the only way to prevent a second Trump term might be to eliminate the competition. We’ll track this story as it moves forward, but I think it’s safe to say that this scheme wasn’t cooked up by any sort of genius and Trump remains free from such dangers… or at least as much as any president ever is.