The surprise is not they found cocaine in the White House — given who lives there.
The surprise is that they told you about. Now it is up to the Secret Service to get Hunter Biden off the hook, which it may do as early as today when it releases its report of the incident.
A coverup could have been launched had President Joe Biden been in the White House when the discovery was made, and not spending the weekend at Camp David with his son Hunter and family.
After all, Hunter Biden is the only known cocaine user in the White House. Hunter is awaiting court action over his sweetheart deal to plead guilty to two “misdemeanor” charges over carrying an illegal gun and tax evasion.
Frequent visitor Hunter – believed by some to be a resident so frequent are the visits – comes and goes as he pleases and is not subject to the search and surveillance that regular White House employees are, let alone tourists.
Hunter could have called a press conference to say that the cocaine was not his, or that it was a plant to make him look worse than he already looks in the eyes of the American public.
But if it was his cocaine, and the Bidens were in the White House at the time, the person or persons who found it might have acted with more deference.
The Secret Service did as much when it allegedly helped Biden out when his then-girlfriend threw the gun he illegally carried around into a trash can, or when the FBI slow walked its investigation into it as well as his income tax problems.
Had Joe or Hunter been around that night, the head of the White House security detail could have gone to them with the find instead of evacuating the White House and calling in emergency services.
As it was, an unidentified uniformed Secret Service agent, or agents, doing what was described as routine work, discovered a bag of white powder, later determined to be cocaine, on Sunday of the July 4th weekend.
The White House was evacuated that night and emergency crews were brought in to ensure that the powder was not anthrax or some other deadly substance.
As the Biden administration was rocked by the find, the exact location of the find has shifted from a common area of the West Wing to a more sensitive location attached to the White House Situation Room.
Joe Biden, with his weird, fixed smile, refused to answer repeated questions thrown at him over the cocaine caper, and Hunter has gone into hiding, which is understandable.
A person with cocaine in a federal building could face serious legal consequences, and Hunter has enough on his plate even as Joe Biden and his politicized Justice Department goes easy on Hunter as a matter of policy.
Instead of commenting on the explosive story, spokespeople for the president, namely Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, have gone after the press for raising the subject.
Both have maintained that the Bidens were not at the White House over the July 4 weekend with the implication being that they could not have had anything to do with the cocaine.
Asked about it, Jean-Pierre said this: “They were not here. They were at Camp David. They were not here Friday; they were not here Saturday or Sunday. They were not even here Monday. They came back on Tuesday. So, to ask that question is incredibly irresponsible.”
However, the cocaine could have been placed there Friday when Hunter was still at the White House, or before, by someone and left behind or perhaps forgotten before Joe Biden and family left for Camp David.
What is “incredibly irresponsible” is not the question reporters have every right to ask. What is incredibly irresponsible is Karine Jean Pierre’s smoke and mirrors.
The question remains: Whose coke is it and who put it there? Hopefully the Secret Service will tell us today.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.