Arizona Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake reacted to her campaign headquarters receiving a package containing a “suspicious white powder” in the mail by vowing to uncover the responsible party.
“We’re in dangerous times,” Lake said Sunday, according to Fox News.
Speaking in Queen Creek, Lake told reporters she was not in her office when the package was delivered.
“I have been so busy campaigning,” she said. “This happened. I was not in the office. One of our wonderful staffers, a couple of them, were actually exposed.”
“And, so far, they’re doing OK,” she added. “We’re monitoring them, and we want to make sure that everything’s OK.”
According to Fox10 Phoenix, a campaign spokesperson initially said the envelopes containing the white powder were to be sent by law enforcement to Quantico, Virginia, for examination.
“Rest assured, we are taking this security threat incredibly seriously and we are thankful for the Phoenix PD, FBI, first responders, bomb squad, and HazMat crews that responded to this incident,” the Lake campaign said in a press statement. “In the meantime, know that our resolve has never been higher and we cannot be intimidated. We continue to push full speed ahead to win this election on Tuesday.”
Lake later told reporters the white substance was sent to another lab, closer to home, for identification, Fox News reported.
The Republican candidate added her campaign has been targeted other times as well:
But listen, we’re in dangerous times. This is not the first time we’ve been threatened. I’ve been threatened many times. Our tires have been slashed. We’ve had screws drilled into our tires so that our tires would blow out while we’re on the road. We are living in dangerous times, and that’s why we need to elect somebody who’s strong and a fighter and not a coward. We’ll get to the bottom of this. I really don’t want to get too far ahead of it.
Officers from the Phoenix Police Department who responded to the call about the substance “learned there were suspicious items located inside the mail,” Sgt. Phil Krynsky said, according to the report.
“Additional resources responded to collect the items and secure the area,” Krynsky added. “There have been no reports of injury and the investigation remains active.”
Lake said the role the establishment media has played in political polarization in America is why she chose to leave her job as a television news anchor.
“We are in such polarized times and this is one of the reasons I walked away from the fake news media because I realized that the media is a big part of it, pitting people against one another,” she said. “You guys want us like this? And I believe that Americans and Arizonans are much more aligned on the issues than you lead us to believe.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Kari Lake” by The Kari Lake.
