Ricin attack targeting President Trump, Secretary of Defense Mattis and Admiral Richardson foiled.

Secretary of Defense James "Jim" Mattis. Monica King/US Dept. of Defense. 

Envelops containing ricin targeting President Trump, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and top Navy officer Admiral John Richardson have been found in a new threat against the US government. Fox News. All three envelopes were intercepted before they reached their intended targets. Intial tests indicated positive for ricin, a deadly poison made from Castor Beans. ricin is one of the easier poisons to make and have been used in attempted and successful assassinations before. 

The attack occurred around the same time as another scare happened at the headquarters for Senator Ted Cruz's reelection campaign. Two people were hospitalized after a white powder was found in a piece of mail. Testing did not indicate any danger but investigators have yet to identify the substance. It is unclear if there Cruz scare had anything to do with the assassination attempts on Trump, Mattis and Richardson. 

My Comment:

Before I say anything else I have to say that trying to kill Jim Mattis is not going to work out for anyone. The man is essentially war incarnate and you would be a fool to think something like ricin would be enough to take him down. Plus, he's one of the most popular men in the Military so if you did take him down you have have the fire and fury of the entire American armed forces come down on you. In short, this was a terrible idea and one that will not end well for the person responsible for this attack. 

Of course the attacks on Trump, Mattis and Richardson were never likely to work. This is not the first time someone has sent ricin to government officials and as usual they were intercepted before it could hurt anyone. Our government is hardened to such attacks and it would take a major mistake for an attack like this to hurt anyone, let alone someone as important as the three men targeted in this attack. 

Before I say anything else I do have to make sure that these attacks aren't always partisan. There were two of these attacks against the Obama administration and neither of them seemed to have been done for partisan political reasons. That may not be the case here but I just wanted to point that out. 

Motive is a mystery for me. Normally I would say that the Ricin attacks were because of politics, but the inclusion of Jim Mattis give me pause. Mattis is the most popular member of Trump's cabinet and is one that even most Democrats respect. If this was done because of political reasons, it would be extreme ones as the mainstream left gives Mattis some respect. 

More likely though this was some psychopath doing it for attention and not for some grand political scheme. I'm thinking more like John Hinkley Jr as opposed to Lee Harvy Oswald. On the other hand, mailing and producing ricin shows a level of planning and expertise that rules out the severely mentally ill. Without a note or some claim of responsibility we will have to wait until this attacker is arrested and even then we might not find out the full story. 

I am more worried about the attack on Ted Cruz. I doubt there is any connection to the ricin cases as why would someone try to poison three people but just hoax the fourth? But if that attacker had used ricin, they probably could have injured and/or killed someone. Unlike the government, political campaigns have much weaker security which makes attacks like this much more likely to work. The fact that two people were hospitalized as a precaution shows how vulnerable they could have been to a real attack. 

The motive in this case was likely political. Cruz is in a tough reelection campaign and his hated on the left. The attack was a major disruption to his campaign a month away from election day. Cruz himself was likely safe but all the time he and his staff spent dealing with this is time they could have been campaigning. And his headquarters was shut down for quite some time, leaving him at a disadvantage. 

My hope is that both of these cases are resolved quickly. Though ricin poisoning via the mail rarely works, it is still a major threat and one that cannot be taken lightly. If the ricin attacker switches up tactics and hits more vulnerable targets he or she may very well kill someone. And in the middle of election season we can not allow these kinds of attacks to continue to disrupt it. Let us all hope that these attackers are found soon and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.