The bag of cocaine found in the West Wing of the White House on Sunday was discovered in “a much more secure” area than previously disclosed, NBC reported on Thursday.
According to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, the White House is now claiming the cocaine was found “in a much more secure place, limited access place” than originally reported. “It’s down near the Situation Room” and “average people just can’t get in there,” she noted.
The dime-size drug bag was allegedly found in an entrance area cubby between a foyer and a lower-level lobby area, near where some official vehicles park, including the vice presidential limo.
NEW: The White House is now claiming the cocaine was found "in a much more secure place … near the Situation Room" and next to "where, for example, the vice president's vehicle is parked." pic.twitter.com/N17r8YJyVV
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 6, 2023
An official close to the matter previously told The New York Post that “the cubby is used by both White House employees and visitors to store phones and personal items that are not taken into other parts of the complex.”
While the location of where the cocaine was found is more secure than previously alleged, officials said that area was also heavily trafficked.
Former Secret Service agent Bobby McDonald disagreed with that assessment, telling Fox News Wednesday night that “I don’ think it’s heavily traversed over a holiday weekend.”
“My guess is the Secret Service has a fairly good idea of who may be involved in this situation. They definitely have an idea of who was on the campus that weekend,” said McDonald, who was the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Vice Presidential Division during Joe Biden’s tenure as Vice President.
“I think the Secret Service is going to be utilizing every asset and capability that it has” to find the culprit and will be “working with other agencies that can assist in this investigation,” McDonald said.
The former agent threw cold water on the notion that the stash belonged to Hunter Biden, who admitted to having had a crack cocaine habit in his autobiography.
“Sweeps are conducted all the time in and around the White House as you know to make sure that there’s nothing that’s inappropriate in various locations. So the idea that this may have been in the cubby for several days just doesn’t hold water for me,” McDonald explained.
The Bidens had left for Camp David on Friday for a long holiday weekend, and returned to the White House on Tuesday.
Fox News reported that the Secret Service has been conducting DNA and fingerprint tests on White House staffers who were there over the holiday weekend.
“We are doing everything possible to attempt to identify who may have brought this item into the White House,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Post on Thursday. “And that includes every resource, that includes every option available to us or to the federal government.”
In an interview with Just the News, former FBI agent and acting commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection Agency Mark Morgan said the White House cocaine mystery should take “about 30 minutes to solve.”
“I was there countless times, I put my cell phone in that exact box that they’re talking about. I know it well. Oftentimes, there is a marine that’s standing there. This literally should take them about 30 minutes to solve,” Morgan said on Wednesday.
“Everybody that comes in, not just the White House grounds, but also everybody that comes into that space, right, where you have to check that cell phone, they’re accounted for. There’s a manifest. There are cameras. I could go on. This literally should take them about 30 minutes to figure out whose cocaine it was,” he added.
While it is a federal offense to bring an illegal drug like cocaine onto federal property, Morgan said he wouldn’t be surprised if the public never finds out the culprit was, given the Biden regime’s history of covering up damaging information.
Bobby Charles, assistant secretary of state at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs in the Bush administration, also told Just the News that it’s likely that the mystery will remain unsolved.
“Whether it was a series of staffers, who apparently might be deeply involved, or one staffer or Hunter Biden himself, it doesn’t really matter. The reality is that you have a president and a White House that have a disregard for the law, they really don’t care.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates was asked about a post by former President Donald Trump on Truth Social, in which he asked: “Does anybody really believe that the COCAINE found in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden.”
“Are you willing to say that that’s not the case, that they don’t belong to them?” a reporter queried.
“I don’t have a response to that because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act,” answered Bates, referencing a federal law preventing executive branch employees from engaging in political activity.
On claims "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?"
Mid-level Biden staffer Andrew Bates: "I don't have a response to that because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act" pic.twitter.com/zuM30v5Fli
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 6, 2023
While Bates and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre were recently accused of violating the Hatch Act, it was unclear how the law applied to the request for confirmation that the drug did not belong to Joe or Hunter Biden.
Later, while on board Air Force One en route to South Carolina, a reporter asked Bates: “If the Secret Service is able to determine the individual responsible, will the Secret Service and the—and—will the White House commit to transparency in this, in making that information public?”
“I’m going to defer to the Secret Service professionals who are carrying this out,” Bates demurred. “I’m just not going to engage on hypotheticals about it.”
Sources say investigators expect to be done with the investigation by Monday.