The NPR Politics Podcast - Feds Charge Man With Mailing Improvised Bombs To President Trump's Critics

Episode Date: October 26, 2018

The Justice Department has charged Cesar Sayoc, 56, in connection with a wave of improvised explosive devices sent to political critics of President Trump. He faces a potential total of 48 years in prison. This episode: Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson and national security editor Phil Ewing. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, this is Brian in Charlotte, North Carolina. This podcast was recorded at 3.50 Eastern on Friday, October 26th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. To keep up with all of the political coverage, check out the NPR One app or tune into your local NPR member station. Okay, here's the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. We posted an episode earlier today about a new poll NPR conducted looking at the midterms, but we are back with a second episode because the FBI has arrested a suspect in this week's rash of political bombing attempts.

Over the past week, more than a dozen suspicious packages have been sent through the United States Postal Service to a media outlet, a Hollywood actor, and at least seven high-ranking current and former political leaders in the Democratic Party. This is utterly unacceptable. Political violence or the threat of violence is antithetical to our vigorous system of self-government. A Florida man, Cesar Sayoc, faces five federal charges. As authorities zeroed in on Sayoc, new devices were discovered intended for Senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, among others. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent.

And I'm Phil Ewing, national security editor. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray held a press conference this afternoon detailing the charges, detailing what we now know about this suspect. Here's what Sessions said about all of this. Regardless of their political beliefs, that we will bring the full force of law against anyone who attempts to use threats, intimidation, and outright violence to further an agenda. We will find you. We will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. So let's start with this. What do we know about this suspect? Cesar Sayoc is 56 years old. He's based in South Florida. He's been charged with five felonies, illegal mailing of

explosives, threats against former presidents, threatening interstate communications, assaulting federal officers and other charges. And he faces as many as 48 years in prison if he's convicted of all of those offenses. He's going to be prosecuted in Manhattan, where five of these suspicious packages were sent. And we also know that he has a long criminal history, a long rap sheet in Florida for theft, drug charges, and one charge many years ago of threatening to use a bomb apparently to blow up somebody over his electric bill. It's been a long few days with more devices found each day, but this was a relatively quick turnaround before

they made this arrest. How did they find this guy and how did they find him so quickly? It's a really interesting story. The FBI director, Christopher Wray, described how, as these suspicious devices, these what he called improvised explosive devices, arrived at the FBI's lab in Quantico, Virginia, technicians there discovered a latent fingerprint on one of them addressed to Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the Democrat of California. And because, as Kerry just mentioned, this suspect, Mr. Sayoc, has a long criminal record, presumably authorities have his fingerprints. They were able to connect this print from the IED to one they had in their records, and that put them on to him relatively quickly. Yeah, there's one other thing, which is that he had this Twitter account. And in this Twitter account, he was attacking some of the same people to whom he allegedly mailed these devices. There were misspellings in his Twitter account that match the misspelling on the labels

of some of these packages, the authorities say. And he was found, we should say, outside Miami? He was found outside Miami, taken into custody in Plantation, Florida, where he may have had some business or at his workplace. We're not sure. Of course, all of the intended targets are people who have criticized President Trump and people who have President Trump has very aggressively criticized on the campaign trail, on Twitter, elsewhere. A lot of focus today on this van of say ox, which is covered in pictures and decals of President Trump, some targets and disparaging messages about Democrats. Have we learned anything about the motive here? No. And the officials who briefed at the Justice Department today were very careful

about connecting the evidence they've laid out in this criminal complaint with any kind of political motivations beyond a comment by the attorney general who said this guy appears to be partisan. As the attorney general said, he may have some partisan motives. Now, as we learn more and as federal investigators and officials are willing to connect more strongly this suspect with that van, then we may learn why this took place. But so far, all the people at the federal level are not going there now. Obviously, FBI Director Christopher Wray was asked about this at the press conference today. Here's what he said. We're focused not on the talk, but on the work, the work of the men and women of law enforcement here.

And the work that was done over the last week is something that should make every American proud and grateful. And it's too early at this stage for us to be discussing motivation in this particular case. You know, interestingly enough, one of the first devices or the first device that was uncovered was sent to the liberal donor, George Soros, who we should disclose has given money to NPR through his foundation. And this suspect, Cesar Sayoc, apparently tweeted about George Soros only a couple of days after that device was located. So he was still tweeting as the devices were being found So he was still tweeting as the devices were being found. He was still tweeting as the devices were being found. And we should be clear, as we're recording this podcast on Friday, there may be more devices that are in the mail working their way to various destinations around the country.

Federal authorities, the FBI director said they could not rule that out. And there have been reports from California of potential suspicious devices addressed to Senator Kamala Harris and the billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer, who's called for Trump to be impeached. Now, the feds have not connected those devices with this arrest. So we don't know yet whether these will be part of the Sayoc case because it's still too early. One of the secondary storylines of all of this this week has been how President Trump has responded. Of course, he regularly, aggressively goes after his opponents in very personal, very visceral ways. And he started out the week saying the things you expect

a president to say. But as the week went on, he got a little more critical of the media, at times seeming to blame the media. This morning, the president tweeted this. Republicans are doing so well in early voting and at the polls. And now this quote bomb, he puts bomb in quotes, stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows. News not talking politics. Very unfortunate. What is going on? Republicans go out and vote. Seems to be maybe implying there that this is some sort of farce. But Kerry, you said Christopher Wray and others were saying these were real devices. Though we're still analyzing the devices in our laboratory, these are not hoax devices. And by Thursday evening, authorities

were starting to uncover this latent fingerprint and other evidence connecting them to the suspect, this man they took into custody. Should be noted, Scott, that authorities took this guy into custody in the 10 a.m. hour Eastern time, which was right around the time President Trump was doing that tweet about the bomb in quotation marks. Now, to be fair to the president, he came out and said later today that he had full support for law enforcement and they did a great and swift job in this case. These terrorizing acts are despicable and have no place in our country. No place. I've instructed authorities to spare no resource or expense in finding those responsible

and bringing them to swift and certain justice. And I've been struck at how the various targets of these devices have responded, because these are mostly politically active people who are out there campaigning right now, campaigning for other candidates in the midterms, many of them thinking about running for president. And I've been struck that, by and large, they have not been speaking too much about it, only making a very careful statement here or there. Senator Cory Booker said nothing for most of the day. But after this press conference, he tweeted, grateful for law enforcement's work to bring those responsible to justice and their vigilance to keep Americans safe, going on to say

acts of terror will never silence or intimidate Americans. There are a couple of reasons for that. Just speaking with my law enforcement reporter hand on. One is that obviously the rhetoric is very hot, so you don't want to do anything to dial it up. And the second is that potentially these people could be witnesses or called on to provide evidence in this ongoing case, law enforcement case against Cesar Sayoc. So they are probably smart to not say too much right now. I guess speaking very carefully in an ascripted manner is the norm in a situation like this.

But given the last few years, it seems like the exception and it seems worth pointing out, which I just guess says a lot about the current political environment. OK, it's Carrie. It's pretty notable. When you're talking about Jeff Sessions, when you're talking about the FBI in this podcast, they are usually not on the same page as President Trump. And they're usually not bragging about what a great job they've all done. Well, exactly. And in this case, they've really had something to tout, which is the cracking of a nationwide manhunt in five days without, at least right now, thank God, any injuries or any anybody injured or hurt in any way. The other thing that really struck me was this was a murderer's row of law enforcement. That Justice Department stage on

the seventh floor where they hold these conferences is not that big. I do not know how they fit that many men on that stage. They had the FBI director, the attorney general. They had one of the FBI guys in from New York. They had the U.S. attorney Jeff Berman from New York. They had the Secret Service. They had the postal inspectors. It was unbelievable. And everybody got a horse whipped for months over the supposed deep state conspiracy that was framing the president in the Russia investigation. Now the feds have a very good feather in their cap by their own account. And the question is whether that will temper the criticism they've been enduring for so long. So we have an arrest. We don't know for sure whether there are more devices that could be discovered in the coming days. Is there anything else in the next few days that either of you are looking for or trying to follow? The main thing is whether or not this individual had any help.

The FBI director, Chris Wray, said, we're pretty sure we got the right guy here. But the investigation is continuing as to whether anyone helped him or he told anybody in advance about his plans and they didn't say something. We have seen people charged in the past, Scott, with knowing in advance about a crime and not doing anything about it and not telling authorities. So that's one area that I'm really interested to dig into in the coming days. One question we've also asked before is if in fact this does appear to be a politically motivated wave of IEDs, will the political people who are active ahead of the midterms actually cool their rhetoric and change the tone as everyone on both parties has actually called for them to do?

No way to know the answer to that question except for the fact that no one knows what tomorrow's story is going to bring in this day and age. And so by this time next week, the IED story could be completely forgotten because it'll be moving through the court system in a normal and orderly fashion. And we could be on to something completely different again ahead of Election Day when all these congressional seats are at stake. And we have covered this story all week on the NPR Politics podcast. We've also posted episodes on other topics like the new poll that NPR did today showing that President Trump is a main motivation for voters in both parties, but particularly Democrats. You can see that in your feed.

We also took a long look at health care and how it's remained a really high-level issue on the campaign trail all this year. We will, of course, cover this as new things happen. But for now, we're going to wrap up this episode. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Phil Ewing, National Security Editor. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.