Pictures have emerged of cocaine found last summer at the White House — before the Secret Service conducted a swift investigation into the matter without arresting a suspect.
A small bag containing about one gram of a white powdery substance was seen in locker no. 50 near the West Executive entrance of the White House, according to a photo obtained by the Daily Mail after filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the protection agency.
The Secret Service ended its investigation just 11 days after the cocaine was found by agents sweeping the West Wing on Sunday night, July 2, forcing a brief evacuation and response by Hazmat teams before the substance could be identified.
The agency said it was unable to find the culprit due to a “lack of physical evidence” after FBI forensic tests failed to show enough fingerprints or DNA on the bag.
“Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to select individuals of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was found,” the Secret Service said in a statement.
We can exclusively reveal at the Daily Mail the first images of the White House cubby where cocaine was found in July in the West Wing processing room.
The case remains unsolved after the US Secret Service closed it after just two weeks due to ‘lack of evidence.’ pic.twitter.com/jPwaFHrSyx
— Katelyn Caralle (@Katelyn_Caralle) November 13, 2023
About 500 visitors were considered suspects, but Secret Service representatives never disclosed whether any were interviewed. The cocaine was then destroyed.
Federal investigators told House lawmakers in a private July briefing that they could not determine who dropped the cocaine into the locker because of a lack of footage in the holding area, which is one floor below the Oval Office and steps from the Situation Room.
President Biden and first lady Jill Biden had left the White House two days before the drug discovery to spend a long weekend at Camp David. The pair were accompanied by first son Hunter Biden, who has admitted to having a history of cocaine addiction.
The cocaine was found near the West Executive entrance of the White House.REUTERS
The Post confronted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the dime-sized bag of coke during a July 7 briefing, asking her to rule out the possibility that it came from a member of the Biden family.
“Can you say once and for all whether the cocaine belongs to the Biden family or not?” The Post asked.
“You know, there have been several irresponsible reports about the family,” Jean-Pierre said, while the Secret Service investigation was still ongoing. “And, uh, so I have to call him here.”
“And I was very clear, I was clear two days ago when talking about this repeatedly when I was asked that question, as you know, and the media reported this, the Biden family is not here,” he added. , refused to answer the questions put to him.
The Secret Service ended its investigation just 11 days after the cocaine was found by agents sweeping the West Wing. Getty Images The small baggy containing about one gram of a white powdery substance was seen in locker no. 50. The Washington Post via Getty Images
“They are not here. They are at Camp David. They’re not here Friday, they’re not here Saturday or Sunday, they’re not here Monday. They returned on Tuesday. So to ask that question is actually very irresponsible, and I’ll leave it at that.”
National security adviser Jake Sullivan also weighed in on the matter during the same briefing and suggested that construction workers working in the West Wing may be responsible for sneaking into one of the most secure buildings in the world.
As part of a July congressional briefing, the Secret Service also revealed that marijuana was twice seized from White House visitors who tried to make it through checkpoints — but no arrests were made.
“No one was arrested in this incident because the weight of marijuana seized did not meet the legal threshold for federal charges or DC misdemeanor felony charges because the District of Columbia has decriminalized possession,” a spokesperson previously told The Post. “The marijuana was collected by officers and destroyed.”
White House staff are required to submit to drug tests, but visitors to the executive mansion are not.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
