Authorities search Miami postal sorting facility in pipe bomb investigation

Police outside the U.S. Post Office Royal Palm Processing

Police outside the U.S. Post Office Royal Palm Processing & Distribution Center, in Opa-locka, Fla. on Thursday. (Miami Herald/TNS via Getty Images)

In less than a week, at least 10 potentially explosive devices have been sent to Democrats and critics of President Trump around the country, and at least one of them passed through a large U.S. mail sorting facility in Opa-locka, Fla., near Miami, according to multiple reports.

The Miami Herald, citing a federal law enforcement official familiar with the investigation, reports that the package sent from the facility is likely the one that ended up on Wednesday at the south Florida office of U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

That package was originally sent to the office of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. It was not delivered and was instead sent to the labeled return address — listed as Wasserman Schultz’s office.

Before the package arrived there, the Herald reports it was rerouted through the Opa-locka mail sorting facility.

Federal agents and the Miami-Dade County Police Department searched the facility on Thursday night, according to reports from the Herald, Reuters and the Associated Press. No potentially explosive devices were found, according to reports.

“A search of a postal database suggested at least some may have been mailed from Florida,” the AP reports.

Hundreds of thousands of packages pour into the facility every day — it’s the size of five football fields, the Herald reports.

The packages, containing devices that appear to be explosive devices, began to show up on Monday, starting with billionaire George Soros, a major donor to Democrats and Democratic causes.

Packages have also been addressed to former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif, and — care of CNN — former CIA director John Brennan. One was also addressed to the actor Robert De Niro, a harsh Trump critic.

All were sent in similar manila envelopes — with Wasserman Schultz listed as the sender, with her surname misspelled.

All packages were either intercepted or discovered; none have detonated and no one has been hurt. Even so, authorities are treating them as “live devices” not “hoax devices,” New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Thursday.

An FBI investigation remains ongoing.

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