FBI, Secret Service investigate threatening fax sent to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Federal law enforcement agencies led by the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI are investigating the origins of a threatening and racially charged cartoon sent by fax to the White House and the Houston office of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee depicting nooses and lynching posts intended for the president and the congresswoman. Beneath a headline which included a racial epithet referring to African-Americans, the one-page cartoon showed two L-shaped lynching posts with “Sheila Jackson Lee” written on one cross bar and “Hussein Obama” written on the second cross bar. “Being a protective intelligence matter, the Secret Service has no further comment.”Jackson Lee said she received the cartoon in her congressional office in Houston. Rushing said he referred copies of the threatening pictorial to the House sergeant at arms, former U.S. Secret Service Agent Wilson “Bill” Livingood; U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan; and FBI Director Robert Mueller. “Why is this president being treated so disrespectfully?” asked Jackson Lee, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.