California man charged with threatening Bush, Cheney

An engineer at a nuclear power plant near Sacramento has been charged with sending threatening letters containing a powdery substance to the same Sierra foothills country club where President Bush will appear Tuesday for a Republican campaign event. Michael Lee Braun, 51, appeared Monday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento on two federal charges of sending threats through the mail. The FBI said he also is a suspect in mailing dozens of similar threats since shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The charges relate to two letters prosecutors said Braun mailed on Thursday to the Serrano Country Club and Serrano Visitors Center in El Dorado Hills, a tony community in the foothills east of Sacramento. The letters contained threats to President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. Rep. John Doolittle, R-Rocklin, according to a statement from the FBI. Bush is scheduled to appear at the country club Tuesday afternoon in a campaign event for Doolittle, who represents a heavily Republican district near Sacramento. A federal affidavit filed with the case further alleges that Braun had sent 51 such letters, including the two most recent ones, since 2001. The letters threatened the lives of the president, Cheney, First Lady Laura Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Each of the letters contained a written threat, usually death by some kind of WMD agent (anthrax, toxic chemical poison, radioactive dust or improvised explosives) and some unknown, white, powdery substance, or items simulating a possible letter/package improvised explosive device," according to the affidavit by Special Agent Timothy Lester. The white substance usually turned out to be baking soda, the affidavit said.

It's amazing the guy got away with this for so long. Read the rest... good grief!