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The authorities around the country were scrambling again on Thursday to respond to the mysterious and repeated discovery of crude explosive devices that have been sent to several prominent figures who have been outspoken critics of President Trump.
The latest devices were found in Delaware and New York, the F.B.I. said Thursday morning. Two were addressed to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Delaware resident, and a third to the actor Robert De Niro, who lives and works in Lower Manhattan.
The wave of pipe bombs — some sent through the mail, others delivered by hand, officials said — has prompted an intense, nationwide investigation into whether people who have criticized the president and been vilified by the right are being targeted. At least 10 devices have been sent and discovered this week, none of which has exploded on its own. Investigators have been trying to determine whether the devices were indeed capable of detonating.
A law enforcement official said the envelope and printed address labels on the package sent to Mr. Biden and Mr. De Niro were similar to those on explosives sent on Wednesday to former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others. An X-ray showed the packages sent to Mr. De Niro contained a device that, like the others, seemed to be a pipe bomb.
“This appears to be from the same sender,” the official said.
Federal, state and local investigators in New York, Washington, Florida and Los Angeles have all joined forces in the rapidly widening case, which has not yet resulted in any injuries but has sent a shock through the nation’s political and news media establishments. One central question in the inquiry is whether the bombs were the work of one person or multiple people.
The devices sent to Mr. Biden were intercepted at a U.S. Postal Service facility in Delaware, a law enforcement official said. Similar to one that had been sent on Wednesday to Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general, the envelope was misaddressed and was being redirected to the return sender written on the mailing label, Debbie Wbaderman Schultz, the Florida congresswoman and Democrat. Another package was also discovered at the same facility, a law enforcement official said, but it was not immediately known to whom it was addressed.
The package sent to Mr. De Niro had been sitting in a mailroom at his movie company, TriBeCa Productions, since at least Tuesday, according to a person briefed on the investigation. At about 5 a.m. on Thursday, security personel at the company discovered it and called the New York Police Department, whose bomb squad responded, officials briefed on the matter said. The package was removed about 6:30 a.m. and taken to the Police Department’s range in the Bronx for disposal.
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said Thursday that an “eagle-eyed security employee” at TriBeCa Productions noticed similarities between the package and photos of envelopes that were discovered on Wednesday.
The first bomb was found on Monday at the home of George Soros, the billionaire advocate of liberal causes, in Westchester County, north of New York City.
The packages have been sent in manila envelopes lined with Bubble Wrap. They have about a half dozen first-clbad postage stamps on them and return addresses with the name, misspelled, of Ms. Wbaderman Schultz, who was once chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. The mailing labels were printed on a computer.
Early Thursday, a swarm of police vehicles and ambulances on standby choked the streets of the TriBeCa neighborhood just a block from the Hudson River. The police closed off several blocks around the building that house the film company and Mr. De Niro’s restaurant.
Mr. De Niro, like the other recipients of packages, has been a frequent critic of Mr. Trump. During the Tony Awards ceremony in June, he gave a speech in which he attacked the president with an obscenity, and a video of his comments was widely shared on social media.
On Wednesday, President Trump at first denounced the attempted bombings, saying at the White House, “We have to unify.”
[After the bomb scares, President Trump tried bipartisanship, then blamed the media]
But at a nighttime rally in Wisconsin, he took a more pointed tone, criticizing the news media and Democrats even as he asked Americans to “come together in peace and harmony.”
And on Thursday morning, the president did not address the bombings directly, he blamed the news media on Twitter for the “anger we see today in our society.”
Another bomb, addressed to John O. Brennan, a Republican and a former C.I.A. director, was sent to the offices of CNN in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday. That same day, a package addressed to Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, was intercepted at a congressional mail facility. In recent months, Mr. Trump and Ms. Waters have often ridiculed each other.
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