The White House screening facility pulled the letter, the Secret Service said. | POLITICO Staff New Obama ricin letter intercepted

A ricin-laced letter addressed to President Barack Obama was intercepted before reaching the president, the Secret Service confirmed Thursday. The letter was similar to those sent last week to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the gun control group he backs.

“The White House mail screening facility intercepted a letter addressed to the White House that were similar to letters previously addressed to Mayor Bloomberg in New York,” Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said in a statement to POLITICO. “This letter has been turned over to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force for testing and investigation.”


NBC News reported that the text of the letter was identical to those sent to Bloomberg, including the line “what’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for you.”

( Also on POLITICO: What is ricin?)

The threatening letters to Bloomberg and the Washington office of his gun control organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, both referenced the “debate on gun laws,” according to a New York Police Department spokesman. Those letters were discovered over the Memorial Day weekend.

“Anonymous threats to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in letters opened in New York City on Friday and by the director of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns in Washington, D.C., on Sunday contained material that when tested locally, preliminarily indicated the presence of ricin,” New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said in a statement.

Bloomberg said Wednesday the threats would not affect his gun control push.

“In terms of why they’ve done it, I don’t know,” Bloomberg said. “The letter obviously referred to our anti-gun efforts. But there’s 12,000 people who are gonna get killed this year with guns and 19,000 that are gonna commit suicide with guns and we’re not gonna walk away from these efforts.”