The West Wing is the activity center of the White House, housing the Oval Office, offices for the president’s top staff, the Cabinet Room, the Roosevelt Room and the press briefing room, behind which dozens of reporters and photographers work every day.
You can’t get to any of these areas without a pass issued by the United States Secret Service (USSS) — but you could get there if, say, your last name is Biden.
An Associated Press report went out of its way to twice say the cocaine was found in a place that anyone could visit. “The White House was briefly evacuated Sunday evening while President Joe Biden was at Camp David after the Secret Service discovered suspicious powder in a common area of the West Wing, and a preliminary test showed the substance was cocaine, two law enforcement officials said Tuesday,” the AP said.
The next paragraph said “Secret Service agents were doing routine rounds on Sunday when they found the white powder in an area accessible to tour groups, not in any particular West Wing office, the officials said.”
But the White House’s official webpage says “visitors will see multiple rooms in the East Wing and Residence, including the State Dining Room, East Room, Blue Room, Red Room, Green Room, and the Family Theater.” So, none of the rooms in the West Wing.
I worked as a journalist inside the White House for a dozen years and never saw a tour group pass through. Tourists enter from East Executive Avenue, next to the Treasury Department, and head into the East Wing. And I’ve taken the tour maybe a dozen times with family and friends — we never went to the West Wing. Sometimes, we visited the Diplomatic Room, the Library, and a hallway that holds the portraits of past presidents and first ladies, but that’s it.
It’s all weird. “Radio dispatches by the D.C. Fire Department and reviewed by DailyMail.com, suggested the substance had been found in the library two floors below the private White House residence — and part of the public tour,” the UK paper reported.
But that changed quickly. “A Secret Service statement confirms that the cocaine was found in a ‘work area’ and not the library,” the Daily Mail reported.
“On Sunday evening, the White House complex went into a precautionary closure as officers from the Secret Service Uniformed Division investigated an unknown item found inside a work area,” the USSS statement reads. “The DC Fire Department was called to evaluate and quickly determined the item to be non-hazardous.”
The AP, again, made sure to note that President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, a former cocaine addict, were not at the White House at the time. Biden and family members spent the long holiday weekend at the presidential retreat Camp David in Maryland.
But speculation on social media started right away. “They never found cocaine in the Trump White House!” Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) wrote on Twitter. And he posted another tweet with a drawing that has been liked nearly 4,000 times.
What a disgrace pic.twitter.com/S3rBLjjVQc
— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) July 4, 2023
Some also targeted Hunter Biden, who has struggled with substance abuse. He was at the White House on Friday before heading with his father to Camp David.
“It wouldn’t be a thumpin’ July 4th weekend without Hunter Biden ripping lines off of a bust of Teddy Roosevelt,” Newsmax host Robb Schmitt said.
“It Appears that Cocaine, has been Found at the White House. –And it Wouldn’t be a Thumping July 4th Weekend, Without Hunter Biden Ripping Lines Off a Bust of Teddy Roosevelt.” pic.twitter.com/dCE0OGMAo2
— Tony Kambeitz (@Kambeitz9) July 4, 2023
Just last week, pictures re-emerged of Hunter Biden holding a crack cocaine pipe as he drove to Las Vegas.
And last month, Hunter Biden reached a sweetheart deal with the Justice Department in which he will admit the facts in a gun charge. He allegedly checked a box claiming he did not use illegal substances — which would have disqualified him from making the purchase.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.