“Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist said Friday it is “hard to believe” the Secret Service cannot identify the person who brought cocaine into the West Wing.
The Secret Service has publicly suggested they may never discover or identify the individual who brought cocaine into a common storage area on the ground floor of the West Wing. Politico Playbook White House correspondent and “Morning Joe” contributor Eugene Daniels said the location indicates who could have access to the area and the cameras should be able to indicate how the cocaine got there.
“We have been told at Politico by Secret Service folks for days that we may never know who is the person who left this behind, dropped it, it fell out of their bag, or threw it away, whatever the case may be, which you talk to folks who used to work in the White House, they find that a little hard to believe. There are a lot of cameras everywhere in this White House and so they’re hopeful that that cleans it up, but this is not a White House that wants to have any conversation about cocaine, where it was, for obvious reasons.”
“It’s not a good look for any White House, but especially this one with all the conspiracy theories that are surrounding this issue, and Cocainegate, I guess, as some people have been calling it online,” he continued.
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Geist reiterated the security technology inside the White House.
“As you say, lots of cameras in that building. Hard to believe they can’t track down who it belongs to,” Geist said. (RELATED: ‘I Would Rule Him Out’: Kayleigh McEnany Says ‘No Way’ Cocaine Belonged To Hunter)
The Secret Service Uniformed Division found the cocaine on Sunday and temporarily evacuated every individual in the building. President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, were vacationing at Camp David at the time of the discovery. Initial reports from the media and White House staffers were inconsistent about the exact location the drug had been found.
White House staff members are required to disclose narcotic or psychotropic drug use and are prohibited from using any drug on the premises, with five having been dismissed in 2021 for having possessed cannabis.
Speculations have floated that Hunter Biden, who has a history of a cocaine addiction, may be responsible for bringing in the drug, though the theory has not been proved. The first son reportedly left the White House Friday en route for Camp David and recently reached a deal to plead guilty to purchasing a gun while using drugs and for failing to pay his taxes in 2017 and 2018.
His current drug use would be a violation of his plea deal, which is currently keeping him out of jail.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre emphasized at a Wednesday briefing that the family was away when the Secret Service discovered the substance.