“There’s absolutely no reason to have this level of vitriol over a single vote,” says Thomas Daffron, who found out firsthand that it doesn’t take a reason. Daffron, the husband of Susan Collins, tells local CBS affiliate WABI about the recent ricin mail threat he received, thanks to someone’s unhappiness with Sen. Collin’s aye vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Collins also talks with WABI to emphasize that threats won’t impact how she lives her life:

“About 1 o’clock, I went and picked up the mail like I do most days,” said Daffron. “I walked back in the kitchen, separated Susan’s out and threw the rest of the junk mail away, and I open this one letter which was addressed to me, and I thought it was some kind of a solicitation or something, and I started reading it, and it was fairly antagonistic toward Susan and got halfway down and I saw the word ricin, that there was ricin residue on this letter. So I took it out. I put it in a plastic bag and called the police.”

“Tom sent me pictures and I saw all these people in Hazmat suits coming in and out of the house,” said Collins. “He was wearing one. And I learned that he, our dog, and parts of our house, including the kitchen, were quarantined. And obviously it was of considerable concern to me”.

Daffron says the letter made reference to the Kavanaugh vote – an issue that landed Collins in the national spotlight.

“I mean there’s absolutely no reason to have this level of vitriol over a single vote,” he said. “I think that we’ve been sort of surprised by the very strong feelings on both sides. We have to…this is our home. We want to live here, we want to live our life like everybody else. And you know if we have to worry about every car that goes down the street, then it becomes a very difficult situation.”

How vitriolic has it become? CBS reported yesterday that alumni and faculty from Collins’ alma mater want St. Lawrence University to rescind an honorary degree given to her in 2017. The letter, signed by 1800 people, argued that Collin’s vote for Kavanaugh showed a lack of “integrity and commitment to justice that we expect from the St. Lawrence body.” For what — standing on due process and the proper burden of proof? For not ruining a man over unsubstantiated and vague allegations from his teen years nearly 40 years after the fact? St. Lawrence must study the Cotton Mather System of Justice.

So far, the FBI has remained mum on its investigation into the threat. Collins and Daffron tell WABI that they can’t discuss it either, other than to assure people that investigators are making progress. If they do catch the person who made this terroristic threat, the Department of Justice had better make an example of him or her pour encourager les autres. Otherwise, the St. Lawrence school of thought on “justice” is likely to take hold.