Bombs Meant ‘to Get Attention’ and ‘Strike Fear,’ Explosives Expert Says

Whoever sent suspicious packages containing bombs to several prominent Democrats and CNN’s New York bureau likely designed them “to get attention,” to “be caught” and “to strike fear” into the intended recipients, Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Wednesday.

“I think it was probably designed to get attention. It was designed to be caught. And while it may be a device that could function, I think it was designed, more than anything, to strike fear in the hearts of people they were intended to target — not necessarily to kill them,” said Crawford, a former bomb disposal technician with the U.S. Army.

Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Eric Holder, former CIA Director John Brennan, and other Democrats reportedly were sent suspicious packages. The package addressed to Brennan was sent to the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, which prompted CNN’s New York bureau, housed within the building, to evacuate.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who fielded bipartisan backlash this summer for her repeated calls to harass Trump administration officials, was also sent a suspicious package. She insisted in a statement, however, that “I unequivocally condemn any and all acts of violence and terror.”

Crawford told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that “this is a contemptible act, regardless of who the perpetrator is.” The congressman noted that the “good news” is that U.S. officials have “a huge database” at their disposal to investigate the suspicious packages and identify the one or more culprits.

“And I will say this, as a former bomb tech I know what the reporting protocols are, and I know that the FBI has a great expertise and the intelligence community has great expertise in being able to go after and exploit that intelligence and find out who these people are,” he said.

“But I can tell you this — that these experts are aware of [the digital footprint] and they’ll find the perpetrator very quickly, and I think we’ll be surprised to see how quick they’re brought to justice in a case like this,” Crawford predicted.

For his own part, Trump strongly condemned the person or persons responsible for sending the bombs to CNN and the prominent Democrats, saying during a press conference on Wednesday, “The full weight of our government is being deployed to conduct this investigation and bring those responsible for these despicable acts to justice. We will spare no resources or expense in this effort.”

“We have to unify. We have to come together,” Trump insisted. “Acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.”

And 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, one of the suspicious packages’ intended recipients, said Wednesday that “It’s a time of deep divisions, and we have to do everything we can to bring our country together. We also have to elect candidates who will try to do the same.”

Clinton’s comments on national civility after being sent the package were markedly different from the remarks she made just several days ago to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

“You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” Clinton said at the time.

Related: Eight Desperate Media Attempts to Tie Trump to the ‘Suspicious Packages’ Sent to CNN, Dems

Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino told Ingraham, “There’s no place for this, and that clip you played on Hillary sums it all up. Just a week ago she was talking about uncivil treatment of Republicans being almost mandatory, and now all of a sudden she’s the peacemaker?”

Bongino denounced the mainstream media coverage following the bomb threats, noting that many reporters and pundits tried to tie Trump and his tough rhetoric against the “fake news media” to the threats, pinning the blame on him.

“It’s gross. It’s disgusting. As a matter of fact, I remember doing commentary on this network during the really horrific shooting in the baseball field,” he said, referring to the June 2017 congressional baseball shooting, targeting Republicans. The shooter, a liberal activist who supporter Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), critically shot and wounded House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).

“Every commentator on this network [was] going out of their way to make sure, me included, by the way … that the person who did that, Bernie Sanders — although he was a supporter [of Sanders’] — had no responsibility for that whatsoever. None. That person was responsible for their own actions,” Bongino said of shooter James Hodgkinson.

“Yet we have irresponsible, gross coverage out there — people jumping to conclusions claiming they have some kind of inside information about a motive and some kind of link to Donald Trump,” he added. “I mean — this is really grotesque. “The president can do no right, Laura, in their eyes. There is nothing he can say and nothing he can do … to get him right with them on the Left.”