NEW YORK (Associate Press) - New York Police Department field tests have ruled a white powder sent with a threatening letter to the Queens office of Congressman Anthony Weiner is not hazardous.
The letter with suspicious white powder was discovered Thursday afternoon at his office in Kew Gardens.
Police say the letter was handwritten in block letters and made a threat related to Weiner's vote in favor of the sweeping federal health care legislation.
Workers were decontaminated as a precaution. More sophisticated lab testing was also to be done to determine the substance.
Many Democrats around the country who supported the new legislation have had bricks hurled through windows and menacing obscenity-laced phone messages left.
Weiner says his first priority is to his staff. The office is closed.
Weiner spoke out about the threat this morning on Fox 5:
Weiner also spoke out against Sarah Palin for inciting violence against Democrats in an interview with CBS 2.
In response to a tweet from Palin which reads "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!'", the Congressman said:
When Sarah Palin uses gun analogies and gun imagery when she makes her political point, she may believe that she's engaging in metaphor. But there are too many people who have twisted minds who might think that she's being literal. What might seem as an obvious metaphor for some people may seem like an invitation for someone else.