Cocaine runaround at the White House
Byron York
COCAINE RUNAROUND AT THE WHITE HOUSE. Republicans in Congress are starting to ask questions about last weekend’s discovery of a baggie of cocaine in the White House. On Friday morning, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), best known as the chief investigator of Hunter Biden on Capitol Hill, sent a letter to Kimberly Cheatle, head of the Secret Service. “The presence of illegal drugs in the White House is unacceptable and a shameful moment in the White House’s history,” Comer wrote. “This incident has raised additional concerns with the committee regarding the level of security maintained at the White House.” Comer requested a briefing for the committee by no later than next week.
Most of what the public knows, or thinks it knows, has come from unnamed sources in news reports. It has been hard to get anyone in the White House to reveal any details about what happened.
President Joe Biden himself has said nothing. On Wednesday, during a photo-op with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, a reporter asked, “Mr. President, do you know how cocaine got into the White House?” Biden ignored the question.
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At the same day’s White House briefing, spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre tried to push the whole issue onto the Secret Service. She said the cocaine was discovered in “a heavily traveled area where many … West Wing visitors come through.” Beyond that, Jean-Pierre said: “I just don’t have anything more to share.”
Jean-Pierre offered just one more bit of information: “The president and the first lady and their family were not here this weekend. … They left on Friday and returned just yesterday [Tuesday].” That seemed a clear effort to distance not only the president from any of the mess but, more specifically, to exonerate the president’s son Hunter Biden, who spends a lot of time at the White House and has been infamously addicted to cocaine at times in the past.
Beyond that, Jean-Pierre referred reporters to the Secret Service. “As you know, this is under the purview of the Secret Service,” she said. She stuck to her talking points so tightly that she repeated the word “purview” 13 times in the briefing. “This is in their purview. … This is under their purview. … It’s under their purview.” And so on. And, of course, the Secret Service wasn’t answering questions, either, so the whole exercise was futile, from the standpoint of the public’s right to know.
What the White House would not answer was more revealing than what it would answer. On Thursday morning, the president flew to Columbia, South Carolina, for a political event. On the way, deputy spokesman Andrew Bates held an off-camera briefing for the press. He built on Jean-Pierre’s nonanswers from the day before but added a note of sincerity that appeared designed to reassure those who might have thought the White House was covering something up.
“I respect there is interest in this,” Bates said. “To be transparent with you, I do not have additional information to provide beyond what Karine laid out in the briefing room yesterday, which is: This is something we take seriously. The law enforcement professionals in the Secret Service are investigating after this substance was discovered in a highly traveled area. We’re willing to assist in any way needed. Beyond that, I’m going to respect their process.”
It was a highly respectful, entirely transparent way to refuse to release any information. But Bates outdid himself with the next question. A reporter brought up the last resident of the White House and asked: “Former President Trump has made some pretty wild posts recently on social media. One of them was the cocaine found in the White House … had belonged to either the president or his son. Are you willing to say that that’s not the case, that they don’t belong to them?”
“I don’t have a response to that,” Bates replied, “because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act.”
What? The Hatch Act? That is the 1939 law that bars federal employees from engaging in some political activities. Biden White House spokespeople often use the Hatch Act as a way to dodge questions. But a question about cocaine in the White House? The first thing to note is that there is nothing in the Hatch Act that prevents an administration spokesman from making public details of the discovery of a baggie of cocaine in the White House. Nothing.
The second thing to note is that from there, claiming he could not speak because of the Hatch Act, Bates went on to speak at some length about Trump, thereby brushing up against actual Hatch Act restrictions. “What I will say is that I have noticed there does seem to be some increasing frustration coming from that corner in general,” Bates said, with “that corner” apparently referring to the Trump camp. “And I think it is probably rooted in the contrast between their substantive policy records.” Bates then touted the Biden record on the economy, jobs, Medicare, and what the White House now calls “Bidenomics.” It was a mini-campaign pitch.
Later, Bates refused to promise that the White House would fully inform the public about the cocaine incident. When a reporter asked, “If the Secret Service is able to determine the individual responsible, will the Secret Service and will the White House commit to transparency in this, in making that information public?” It would seem that the simple answer would be, “Yes,” but instead, Bates responded, “I’m just not going to engage on hypotheticals about it.”
At Friday’s briefing, national security adviser Jake Sullivan addressed the issue, specifically talk that the cocaine was found quite close to the White House Situation Room. “The Situation Room is not in use and has not been in use for months because it is under construction,” Sullivan said, adding that the White House is using an alternative Situation Room in another part of the complex.
As for the cocaine itself, Sullivan said, “We have rigorous drug testing policies at the White House. We have rigorous drug use policies at the White House. If it involves someone from the White House, the appropriate consequences will ensue.”
A number of news reports suggest that the Secret Service investigation will be finished by early next week. There was word that authorities have finished fingerprint and DNA testing and are going through video from the White House’s many surveillance cameras.
Toward the end of Friday’s briefing, a reporter re-asked the key question that some Republican see in the cocaine matter: “Can you just say once and for all whether the cocaine belonged to the Biden family?” Jean-Pierre took offense. “There has been some irresponsible reporting about the family,” she said. “I’ve got to call that out here. I have been very clear … the Biden family was not here. They were not here. They were at Camp David. … So to ask that question is actually incredibly irresponsible.”
A simpler answer — like, “No, the cocaine did not belong to the Biden family,” would have been more effective. But like everything else, the public is in the dark at the moment. Judging by statements from the White House, perhaps the public will find out what happens, and perhaps it won’t.
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