Reports over the past couple of weeks have indicated that Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is on the verge of criminally indicting former President Donald Trump over his alleged 2016 "hush money" payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels, and Trump has been quite vocal in denouncing what he views as yet another politically motivated "witch hunt" against him.
In a shocking development on Friday, it was reported that the DA's office had received a letter addressed to Bragg that contained a death threat and suspicious "white powder" through the mail, Breitbart reported.
The powder was soon determined to be a "non-hazardous" substance and nobody was harmed, nor was the office even evacuated.
Insider reported that a spokesperson for the DA's office said in a statement, "The DA has informed the office that it was immediately contained and that the NYPD Emergency Service Unit and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection determined there was no dangerous substance."
NBC News reported that the letter addressed to DA Bragg contained a small amount of white powder along with a note that said, "ALVIN: I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The outlet noted that a senior law enforcement source said that Bragg's office had received "several hundred threats" over the past couple of weeks and that a few dozen of them were deemed to be serious threats of harm to the district attorney and the prosecutors who work under him.
Other unnamed sources told NBC News that the letter was postmarked on Tuesday and appeared to have been sent from the Orlando, Florida area.
Fox News reported that the letter containing the suspicious powder and death threat against DA Bragg had been delivered to the mail room of the DA's office on Friday by the U.S. Postal Service, and police were summoned to respond around noon shortly after it had been discovered.
Not coincidentally, the DA's office is in the same building as where the grand jury in the Trump case convenes, though it is not normally in session on Fridays and, in fact, had not met on Wednesday or Thursday as it otherwise normally would have.
Those regular sessions had been canceled, according to two unnamed sources, in part because of "major dissension" within the DA's office about the effort to indict the former president as well as the "weakness" of the case that had made it more difficult to convince the grand jury to recommend criminal charges.
This all follows about a week's worth of provocative posts from Trump to his Truth Social account that used highly inflammatory rhetoric against Bragg's purported intent to indict him and inaccurately alleged that he would be arrested on Tuesday while also urging his supporters to take to the streets in protest of the partisan persecution of political opponents.
Meanwhile, Politico reported last weekend that DA Bragg, in response to the initial ramp-up of rhetoric from former President Trump but without actually naming him, sent a private memo to all employees in the DA's office to address the "ongoing press attention and public comments surrounding an ongoing investigation by this office."
Noting that safety was a "top priority" and citing coordination with local law enforcement, Bragg wrote, "We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York. Our law enforcement partners will ensure that any specific or credible threats against the office will be fully investigated and that the proper safeguards are in place so all 1,600 of us have a secure work environment."
He went on to reiterate his commitment to "maintaining a safe work environment" for all employees, praised them for their "diligence and professionalism," and added, "In the meantime, as with all of our investigations, we will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, and speak publicly only when appropriate."
