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National Review
National Review
7 Jul 2023
Ari Blaff


NextImg:‘Shameful Moment’: Comer Demands Answers From Secret Service after White House Cocaine Incident

House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) sent a letter Friday to Kimberly Cheatle, director of the Secret Service, demanding more information on the discovery of cocaine in the White House last Sunday.

“The presence of illegal drugs in the White House is unacceptable and a shameful moment in the White House’s history,” Representative Comer wrote in a letter obtained by National Review. “According to a senior law-enforcement official, the cocaine was found in a storage facility that is ‘routinely used by White House staff and guests to store cell phones.'”

“This alarming development requires the Committee to assess White House security practices and determine whose failures led to an evacuation of the building and finding of the illegal substance. The Committee requests the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) provide additional information,” Comer wrote.

Comer’s letter comes one day after the reported location of the cocaine found in the White House was revised from the West Wing lobby, which is accessible to visitors, to a cubby beside the West Executive entrance in a working area of the West Wing. Official vehicles, such as the vice president’s limousine, regularly park outside the West Executive entrance.

The Secret Service did not immediately respond when asked whether the agency will cooperate with Representative Comer’s request.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stressed that the original reported location of the cocaine was heavily trafficked by visitors. “What I wanted to be very clear is that this is a heavily, heavily trafficked, heavily traveled, to be more accurate, area of the campus of the White House,” Jean-Pierre said. “It is where visitors to the West Wing come through.”

“This is under the purview of the Secret Service,” she added. “They are currently investigating what happened over the weekend. So I would have to refer you to the Secret Service, the Secret Service on all of this.”

However, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell noted the new location is a “much more secure place” with “limited access” and that “normal people, average people, can’t get in there.”

On Wednesday, Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) sent a similar note to Director Cheatle, expressing his concern for the physical safety of high-ranking officials that regularly use executive spaces.

“If the White House complex is not secure, Congress needs to know the details, as well as your plan to correct any security flaws,” wrote Cotton, the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism.

Among the senator’s accompanying list of questions was “a complete list” of all individuals who have access to the space, people with obtained access through “less security screening requirements,” and confirmation of any other “illegal drugs” the agency had encountered over the past five years.

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Representative Comer ordered the Secret Service respond to his letter by July 14.