A letter filled with suspicious “white powder” was sent to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann’s office on Wednesday, with hazmat teams investigating the package.
An aide opened the letter, addressed to Senate President Fann on Wednesday at around 4 p.m., and discovered a “small amount” of “unidentified white powder” inside of it, according to Mike Philipsen, Arizona Senate GOP’s Director of Communications. The assistant, “out of an abundance of caution,” then contacted the Department of Public Safety, Philipsen said, who sent out a hazmat team to check the letter.
In an email to Newsweek, DPS Public Information Officer Bart Graves confirmed the incident occurring. “The package was secured by DPS Hazardous Materials Response Unit and submitted to the DPS Crime Lab,” Graves wrote, noting that their investigation was continuing regarding the package. No details were released by Graves on what the white powder was, but Philipsen did say that some of the tests that were performed by the hazmat team in the Arizona Senate came out “negative.”
The personal attacks on @FannKfann by some media and others is truly disturbing. If you don't agree with the policy, disagree with it but no need to attack her personally. Now this. Today someone sent an unidentified white powder to her office. Not OK folks. DPS is investigating.
— Warren Petersen (@votewarren) May 20, 2021
The letter full of white powder being sent to Fann comes as Arizona Democrats and mainstream media outlets are slamming the forensic audit of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County that is currently taking place. The audit, which Fann authorized in her role as Senate President, was denounced as a “sham” by the Board of Supervisors of Maricopa County last week. Maricopa County also declared that it intends to stop cooperating with the audit.
“As chairman of this board, I just want to make it clear, I will not be responding to any more requests from this sham process,” said Chairman Jack Sellers, closing out the special meeting held on Thursday, which was broadcast on their YouTube with comments and dislikes turned off. “Finish what you’re calling an audit and be ready to defend your report in a court of law. We all look forward to it. We are adjourned.”
Forensic analysis firm CyFIR’s founder confirmed this week that the primary database for the the Maricopa County presidential election, which had been deleted at some point, has successfully been recovered and is now undergoing data continuity checks to ensure that the data is useful. Though Democrat officials have insisted that the Database directory on the primary EMS server has not been deleted, and that claims as such were right-wing conspiracies, CyFIR’s Ben Cotton confirmed during a special hearing on Wednesday that this was, in fact, the case.