King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has been outspoken in voicing his concerns about the “radicalization” of some American Muslims, and, in an apparent reaction, someone has responded by sending him a bizarre package.
“Anytime you get involved in any controversial issue, there’s always going to be extremes that react,” King told POLITICO on Tuesday. “It probably adds to the climate” of hostility, he said.
A U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman said the force has “an active open investigation regarding this incident and are working with postal inspectors” and could not confirm the contents of the package.
King’s chief of staff, Kevin Fogarty, said his office would be cooperating with the investigation.
Coming less than a month after King held a widely publicized hearing warning that terrorist groups including Al Qaeda were targeting Muslim communities in the United States to recruit new members, the discovery of the package Monday morning at a postal facility in Landover, Md., is an odd twist.
Last month, on the morning of his hearing, King told POLITICO that he had been under around-the-clock police protection since late 2010. Security officials “do the threat analysis, they decide what type of coverage they believe is necessary,” he said. The threats at that time were described as coming from overseas.
King and his staff haven’t seen the package, but a congressional source told POLITICO that the pig’s foot was bloody and that the letter was “a rambling type” of message conveying anti-Semitic sentiments. At one point, it refers to King as a “Jew,” though he is Catholic.
“Somewhere in the message it says ‘all the babies in America will be named Mohammed,’” the source said. The letter also says “kiss my black Muslim ass.”
The source said: “I guess you have to interpret it as a threat. It’s certainly not a sign of affection.”
Meanwhile, Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations and a frequent King critic, said his group often receives pig-themed hate mail. “My guess is it was an anti-Muslim bigot, and bigots not being brain surgeons they probably got their signals crossed,” he told CBS News.
Politico
