WASHINGTON (CN) — Federal officials don’t know yet who brought cocaine into the White House over the weekend or how it got in the building.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the Secret Service is continuing to investigate after an officer found cocaine in a plastic envelope around 6 p.m. Sunday. She did not provide substantive updates on the investigation.
“This is under the purview of the Secret Service,” she said at a briefing Wednesday. “They are investigating, so I would have to refer you to the Secret Service.”
The envelope was found near where visitors are asked to leave their cellphones before entering for West Wing tours. The quantity of cocaine was not announced.
Security measures were temporarily escalated while the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department responded, prompting a brief evacuation. Officials determined the substance was nonhazardous, and subsequent testing confirmed it was cocaine.
“The item was sent for further evaluation and an investigation into the cause and manner of how it entered the White House is pending,” the Secret Service said in a statement Tuesday.
With FBI assistance, the Secret Service is leading the investigation and is reviewing visitor logs and security footage. Because the drugs were found in a highly trafficked area of the White House, however, it will be difficult to determine the source.
“We have confidence that the Secret Service is going to get to the bottom of this,” Jean-Pierre said.
President Joe Biden and members of his family, who were at Camp David in Maryland over the weekend, were not at the White House when the drugs were discovered. Biden returned to Washington on Tuesday.
Biden did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about the cocaine ahead of his Wednesday meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
It does not appear anyone has ever been arrested, charged or convicted for using or possessing drugs in the White House, but at least two people have boasted of getting away with it. Rapper Snoop Dogg admitted to smoking a blunt in a White House bathroom in 2013, and country artist Willie Nelson said he smoked pot with President Jimmy Carter’s son on the building’s roof in the 1970s.
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