US Defense Department workers screening mail. ABC News/AFP.
An arrest has been made in the ricin case that targeted President Trump, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Senator Ted Cruz and Admiral John Richardson. ABC News. William Clyde Allen, a Navy veteran from Logan, Utah has been arrested for the attack. Investigators have found that the powder was not ricin but castor beans, which ricin is processed from. Castor beans are still deadly if eaten but are not dangerous if casually contacted. The investigation linked the attacks on Trump and the Pentagon with the attack on Ted Cruz, which wasn't initially thought to be connected to the other attacks. Allen was tracked down after he left his return address on one of the envelopes.
My Comment:
An update to yesterdays post. It looks like this case was less dangerous than it was. It seems like Logan wasn't even able to make ricin, which isn't so hard to do. Instead he just sent the seeds. It's unclear if those seeds were ground up or not but they are a lot less dangerous than actual processed ricin. They were unlikely to harm anyone unless someone was stupid enough to eat it. Thankfully this attack failed pretty miserably.
I was surprised that the Ted Cruz attack was included in the other three. That case seemed different than the other three with the substance seemingly ruled out from being ricin or castor beans. Apparently that wasn't the case and this event was part of the other attacks. Perhaps I should have waited until better info came out but I was just going off of reporting I had seen from multiple sources.
The attacker in this case seems like a total idiot. Not only did he fail to make an effective weapon, he also was tracked down almost instantly and has already been arrested. Sending out mail with poison in it and then leaving your return address on it is almost criminally stupid. Especially because it's more effort to actually include the return address than to leave it off.
It almost makes me wonder if this wasn't some kind of suicide mission. He had to know he was going to get caught right away right? And if he knew he was going to get caught what could he be looking for? My guess is attention. He thought trying to attack the President and other important figures would get attention and it worked.
As for motive, it seems pretty clear that this wasn't a non-political attack. The rumor mill is that this guy was antifa, but nobody has confirmed that. Still, given his choice of targets it would make sense. Attacking Trump and Ted Cruz wouldn't be out of character for a #Resist type, but targeting the military in James Mattis and Admiral Richardson makes antifa more likely. Regardless though, even if he wasn't antifa, it's hard to argue that this wasn't done for political reasons.
Either way though I am glad that this guy was caught. Though he failed miserably in his attacks there is no reason not to suspect that he couldn't have gotten better and refined his attacks so they actually hurt someone. Plus his actions were extremely disruptive to the Ted Cruz campaign and further attacks might have cost him votes unfairly. He deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
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