A man has been charged in connection with a mail bomb campaign targeting prominent Democrats who have criticised US President Donald Trump.
US Justice Department officials revealed that a fingerprint found on one package helped them identify their suspect as Cesar Sayoc, 56, of Aventura, Florida.
Court records show Sayoc, an amateur bodybuilder with social media accounts that denigrate Democrats and praise Mr Trump, has a history of arrests for theft, illegal steroids possession and a 2002 charge of making a bomb threat.
The case widened on Friday as investigators in California scrutinised a similar package sent to Democratic senator Kamala Harris, her office said.
In Washington, US attorney general Jeff Sessions cautioned that Sayoc had only been charged, not convicted.
In Florida, law enforcement officers were seen on television examining a white van, its windows covered with an assortment of stickers, outside the Plantation auto parts store. Authorities covered the vehicle with a blue tarp and took it away on the back of a truck.
Mr Trump, after Sayoc was apprehended, declared that “we must never allow political violence take root in America” and Americans “must unify”.
As in comments earlier in the week, he did not mention that the package recipients were all Democrats or officials in Mr Obama’s administration, in addition to CNN, a news network he criticises almost daily.
Earlier on Friday, he complained that “this ‘bomb’ stuff” was taking attention away from the upcoming election and said critics were wrongly blaming him and his heated rhetoric.
Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this “Bomb” stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows – news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 26, 2018
The Justice Department scheduled a Friday afternoon news conference in Washington that was to include New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill, whose department investigated the mailings with the FBI.
Law enforcement officials said they had intercepted a dozen packages in states across the country. None had exploded, and it was not immediately clear if they were intended to cause physical harm or simply sow fear and anxiety.
Earlier on Friday, authorities said suspicious packages addressed to New Jersey senator Cory Booker and former national intelligence director James Clapper – both similar to those containing pipe bombs sent to other prominent critics of Mr Trump – had been intercepted.
Investigators believe the mailings were staggered. The US Postal Service searched their facilities 48 hours ago and the most recent packages did not turn up.
Officials do not think they were sitting in the system without being spotted.
