Suspicious letter prompts closing of Treasury Dept. mail facility

By Major Garrett
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Treasury Department's off-site mail facility was closed Friday night for environmental testing after an employee there found a suspicious letter with a Trenton, New Jersey, postmark, CNN has learned.

In addition to carrying the Trenton postmark, the letter also had "unusual" writing on the outside, two government sources familiar with the investigation said. A mailroom worker flagged the letter for both reasons, they said.

The letter was not addressed to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill or any senior Treasury Department officials, the government sources said.

The off-site mailroom will be closed until tests on the letter are complete, said Michelle Davis, spokeswoman for the Treasury Department. Those tests could be finished as early as Saturday, she said. The letter did not appear to contain anything suspicious inside and was not lumpy or in any way misshapen, Davis said.

The letter was turned over to the Federal Protective Service, the agency that provides security for government buildings outside the White House grounds.

The off-site mailroom is not in the main Treasury Building, which is located next to the White House. It is located in a building close to the main Treasury Building, Davis said.

Davis also said the off-site mailroom that services the Treasury building reopened Tuesday after having been closed since October 19, the day an anthrax-laden letter was delivered to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's personal office in the Hart Senate Office Building.

Bacterium from the spores in that letter have been linked to the deaths by inhalation anthrax of two postal workers employed at the Postal Service's Brentwood mail facility that processed the Daschle letter.