Suspicious substance letters sent to Congress; DC anti-violence programs update

Welcome to the DMV Zone on this Thursday, 3 o'clock. I'm Reena Morocco. We've got a lot to talk about today. A busy day in the newsroom, as it usually is, and federal authorities at this hour investigating suspicious letters containing unknown substances, some of them mailed to congressional offices on the Hill. The FBI, U.S. Capitol Police, and the Postal Inspection Service working to intercept any additional letters before they are delivered. The investigation comes as election officials in at least three states have reported receiving packages containing mysterious powders, one envelope with the return address of DSA at a New York address once used by the Democratic Socialists of America no evidence the group is linked to the mailings a former FBI agent Ken Gray with this and Ken we should say that this all comes on the 25th anniversary of that first letter that was sent back in 2001 on those anthrax attacks that we still remember what do we make of where the investigation is at the at this hour hi Marina this is very reminiscent of the anthrax attack back in 2001. We had a victim of the anthrax attack here in Connecticut, so I'm quite familiar with that. You know, the investigation is involving FBI, Capitol Police, and postal inspectors. And after the 2001 attack with anthrax, they have the ability mailings to where it originated from uh it takes some time to do that but uh really uh that that is they're in a lot better position now than they were back in 2001 uh powder like this mailed through the mail it has to be grown out to determine whether or not it contains something dangerous whether it's anthrax or something else uh so it takes time to be able to say if it's a real threat or not The vast majority of mailings of white powder were all fake letters, that is, did not contain anything dangerous, but you never know. Right. It's been 25 years. In those 25 years, has there been any sort of protocols enacted by the USPS or by the feds at large to try and prevent the potential of these things mailed coast to coast and just anywhere around the country? So most federal facilities, at least, had started opening their mail outside their facility. They have a mail room separate from the rest of the facility so as not to contaminate the entire offices like what happened with Congress where they had to come in and decontaminate large parts of the Capitol there. But as far as being able to detect suspicious substances inside an envelope, the postal authorities are somewhat silent about exactly what they do at looking at mail. But as I say, they do have the ability to track mail where it originates from. And in the 2001 incident, they were actually able to take it back to the mailbox where the original packages had been mailed from. So, you know, they can really track it down right to the origin. Yeah, I mean, look, the mail has been used as a criminal activity for, we talk about the Unabomber and how he also went after his victims. Obviously, the anthrax attacks and now some of this. What can we expect as the outcome? How easy, how difficult is it for investigators to find the perpetrator behind these packages, whether or not they're real or not? So when we were working the anthrax case in 2001, we did not identify the person that we believe to be the originator, Bruce Ivins, and that was 2006. So it takes time. It really does take time in a case like this. They may be able to find out who mailed it earlier than that, but I would not be surprised if it takes a while to actually get to the person who puts the actual envelope into the mail. it's always helpful though to have somebody tell you and so who knows somebody might fess up to this or provide information that leads to the original attacker right i look at the pipe bombs right outside of the DNC on the eve there of January 6th and still it was years later that the government determined who they believe placed those and still were working through that case so It could be years to come as we find out who the originators are. We so appreciate it, Ken Gray. Thank you so much for your insight on that. Anytime. Topic number two here. D.C. spending millions of dollars on programs designed to prevent gun violence. But a recent study raising serious questions about whether they're working. Researchers finding that one city-funded program was associated with a slight increase in deadly shootings in the neighborhoods it served, while another showed no statistically significant impact. impact. The findings come as the programs now face budget cuts and scrutiny following a bribery scandal involving D.C. Councilmember Trayon White. Washington Sun reporter Jenny Gathright has been following this and has all the details on what these researchers found, researchers including from Johns Hopkins here. Where does that stand now for D.C. seeing that millions of dollars have been spent and yet this data is showing not only did it not decrease or stay stagnant, there was in fact, a slight increase? Yeah, so the study looked at the time period between 2018 and the middle of 2025. And you're right, they found that these programs had no impact on reducing violence and, in fact, were associated in some cases with a slight increase in firearm fatalities. Basically, where this leaves D.C., I mean, I, you know, reached out to D.C. officials who said that they feel like this study doesn't capture some of the more recent reforms they've made to the programs in the last couple of years, particularly after some contractor misbehavior has come to light and after the bribery scandal. And so they argue that they're going to retool these programs, that they're already working with a model that is more evidence-based. But of course, there will be a new mayor in January who might add and start something else entirely new. Based on your reporting, there seems to be at least two, if you will, like committees, right that that have these violence interrupter programs one from the executive of DC from the mayor's office and a separate one from the attorney general and based on what i read here ONC which is the one that comes from the executive here it went from a budget of five million dollars in 2019 to a 28 million dollar budget in 2022 which would have been in the years that these researchers looked where there was no seemingly any sort of abatement on this crime Why were they giving it so much more money when nothing was being changed? So, yeah, the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement's budget grew really fast. And some of the experts I spoke to who have worked with these programs closely said that the budget was maybe actually growing too fast for their programs to keep up with, for the office to keep up with and monitor everything that was going on appropriately. One of the reasons why the budget exploded was not just investments locally, but federal money. You know, American Rescue Plan dollars that became available during the pandemic. The city devoted a lot of those to anti-violence efforts, in part because during that time, homicides were rising to a generational high in D.C. You know, they've since fallen really steeply since then. But at the time, the problem was really bad and the city wanted to throw everything at the wall to try to fix it. And part of that, you know, went to this explosion at the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement. but yes some of the people who examine the programs closely argue that that explosion of funds didn't come um you know with a real plan about sort of how that money could be spent most effectively right and to that point based on your reporting there was all this money and no plan in place from what it seems like as far as the attorney general's uh violence interrupters program they seem to have more of a tailored approach and yet there are council members who say let's get rid of this one from the executive's office and just go to the attorney general use that program but there doesn't seem to be the appetite for it where do things stand right now with this so the programs have merged under the office of neighborhood safety and engagement and the office of the attorney general is no longer running any of the violence intervention um street outreach programs that they used to so they've now merged and um the city just awarded grants to a new round of contractors to do this work the grants are significantly smaller than they used to be. And they're asking the grantees to adhere to a certain strategy that involves working with the highest risk people, the people most likely to pick up a gun. So the programs are much smaller and that means that a lot of violence interrupters, some of whom, you know, really dedicated their lives and put their safety on the line for this work, have lost their jobs just in the last couple of weeks. Right. You talk about the office out in the Trinidad neighborhood that's in the fifth police district there. It's hard to say that there was any positive impact when you've got things like the Metropolitan Police Department, which was also used to thwart crime and homicides. And now in the last year, the presence of the National Guard, which some will say those numbers have also have curbed crime here. Where do things go from now? We've got an outgoing mayor, incoming mayor come January. Is there any sort of retooling here, especially as it relates to the millions of taxpayer dollars, it seemed to have really done nothing. The Democratic nominee for mayor, Janice Lewis-George, says that she plans to overhaul and rebuild these programs, essentially. And she says she's looking to programs that have shown a bit more success in cities like Baltimore and Chicago as models. But it really remains to be seen how those plans are fleshed out and sort of what the future holds for this work, especially given sort of all of this disagreement in the field about what the best approach is for this work and what could be most effective. And certainly how much money is being spent to do that. Jenny Gathright with the reporting there with The Washington Post. We appreciate the conversation. Thank you, Jenny. Topic number three here, new documents obtained by The Washington Post shedding light on who's funding President Trump's $330 million White House ballroom project. Their investigation revealing some of the biggest donors, including a major tech company and wealthy Republican contributors raising questions about transparency and potential conflicts of interest. Washington Post reporter Jonathan O'Connell with the details here. And, Jonathan, I think what's interesting, and, you know, for some reason, we've all seen the people have been in the orbit of the Trump administration. To tie that to the dollar amount and the donations, I think, speaks very loudly. This is a list of people and companies and foundations who have, you know, they've contributed tens of millions of dollars to this project. And a lot of them did it anonymously. So about a year ago, actually, the White House announced 37 of the donors, but didn't say how much they had given or when they had given. And since then, the public has basically zero visibility into how this project is being funded and, you know, also what the interests are of the people who are funding it. Money is a one-on-one part of everything that we do, especially as it relates to politicians. who are the largest donors here and what can we say they've achieved in that relationship with the Trump administration? I mean, I should say we don't know for certain whether the donations get at the donors anything. It could just be that they want to fund and support the construction of a new White House East Wing and a new White House ballroom. And that, you know, that many of them have said that to us, that that is their purpose in donating. The problem is that, you You mentioned some of the top donors. There are top donors here who have, like, NVIDIA, for instance, the most valuable public company in the world, and this giant chip-making company. They negotiated this extremely big deal with the Trump administration to sell chips in China, and a series of deals, frankly. And, you know, one could view these in many different ways. I mean, you could view NVIDIA providing $25 million toward the ballroom as something just patriotic as part of their interest in making sure the White House and the Capitol look good, which is part of the statement that they made to us. Or you could be nervous or concerned that possibly they will get or have received some sort of preferential treatment because of their donation. We'll let our viewers decide that one. Jonathan O'Connell with us with The Washington Post and The Reporting. We appreciate it. And still to come here on the DMV Zone, we're checking in with NPR as the midterm elections are approaching. and more voters are turning to artificial intelligence. What that means on the other side.