The Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., was recently locked down on Wednesday morning after someone sent vials of blood to the building via NBC.
It has been noted that the Capitol Police responded to the scene at 7:45 a.m. after a report of a suspicious package, police said. The package had a couple of vials of blood and was cleared by the Hazardous Incident Response Division, the police told NBC News. The source of the package and its contents are under investigation. It is unclear if a suspect is in custody.
The road to the RNC headquarters was later reopened to traffic, and Capitol Police have left the scene.
The party headquarters has been a target. On Jan. 5, 2021, pipe bombs were found near both the Republican and Democratic Party buildings in Washington. It is also noted that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was evacuated from the DNC headquarters in that incident. Nobody was ever apprehended in connection with the bombs, which were placed on the eve of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The White House condemned the incident during Wednesday’s press briefing.
“The Capitol Police is looking into this so I would leave it to them to investigate what’s going on,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “It is concerning. We have obviously seen the report. And we are going to do what we consistently have done from here, [to] condemn any political violence, threats or intimidation that has no place in any community and certainly in our political discourse.”
