The discovery of cocaine near the West Wing of the White House is causing a political headache for President Biden, leaving him exposed to criticisms from his GOP opponents while raising concerns about security at the complex.
Administration officials have been fielding uncomfortable questions this week about how cocaine got into the White House amid a Secret Service investigation into the matter.
Meanwhile, media chatter about the discovery is overshadowing what the White House wishes the focus could be on instead: glimmers of hope in the economy, NATO and other domestic and foreign issues it sees as far more pressing.
“I’m sure it’s incredibly frustrating. This is also the struggle with any White House. You plan and you plan and you plan and you have perfect events and the perfect schedule and something unexpected is thrown into the mix,” said a Democratic strategist and aide in a previous administration.
The story has been dominating television news since the discovery Sunday inside a work area of the West Wing, which led to a precautionary closure of the White House complex, according to administration officials. The Secret Service confirmed Wednesday that the substance was cocaine.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spent much of that day’s briefing fielding question after question about the discovery, with few additional details to share other than the Secret Service would “get to the bottom of this.”
Conservative media, however, opted to associate the cocaine found to the president’s son Hunter Biden, who has had a history of drug use, despite there being no such links and the fact that neither Hunter nor Joe Biden were at the White House that day.
President Trump, meanwhile, lashed out at the media for its coverage and questioned: “Does anybody really believe that the COCAINE found in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden.”
One source close to the administration, however, said it was handling the situation “very well.”
“It’s all political fodder right now, political bull s***,” the source said.
“I think it’s comical. Of course, you’re going to do what you need to do. Any time the opposition has a way to lean in and provide some type of antidote or response that’s going to get people wired up — they’re going to do so,” the source added.
When asked about Trump’s comments, the White House hammered into the president’s top political rival.
“I have noticed there does seem to be some increasing frustration coming from that corner in general and I think it is probably rooted in the contrast between their substantive policy efforts,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates. “There is a long list of areas where this administration succeeded for the middle class where our predecessor did not.”
Bates then tried to bring the conversation back to what the White House wants to focus on, namely their “Bidenomics” agenda that they have pushed out for the last two weeks.
The questions came as the president was headed to South Carolina for a speech on the economy and his investments in clean energy. On Wednesday, the president met with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at the White House in a show of support for Sweden joining NATO by the deadline of the summit next week.
But, the news cycle stayed hooked on the cocaine story.
The White House has stressed that they are taking the investigation seriously but that it is in the hands of the Secret Service. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about whether dealing with the discovery of cocaine is distracting from other topics.
“I respect there’s interest in this,” Bates told reporters Thursday.
Jean-Pierre repeatedly noted Wednesday that the drugs were found in a highly traveled area of the White House and that the president and his family — including Hunter Biden — were at Camp David at the time.
But even by Thursday, drawing such a conclusion kept the chatter going.
Trump’s former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany broke with her former boss, saying there is “no way” the cocaine belonged to the younger Biden considering he wasn’t at the White House.
“There is no way, it is inconceivable to think cocaine could sit for a 72-hour period [at The White House], so I would rule him out at this point,” she said Thursday on Fox.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) responded to the incident by writing a letter to the Secret Service, demanding details on whether anyone has access to the White House complex without passing through security and if the Secret Service has encountered illegal drugs in the past five years.
House Republicans have already launched probes into Hunter Biden and whether he got preferential treatment during the investigation into his failure to pay taxes, and the GOP are likely to keep hammering away at the incident when they return to Washington next week.
Amid the public focus on the cocaine situation, Biden allies argue that the White House is doing the right thing by letting the Secret Service handle it.
“Every president has faced a host of embarrassing events for which they’ve had no control. This just happens to be one such event,” said former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.).
Carney, a senior policy adviser at Nossaman LLP, added that it’s the best move for the White House “to let the Secret Service do an unfettered investigation, make a report, and take any measures deemed necessary.”
Conservative media has used Hunter Biden’s frequent appearances at high-profile events at the White House as well as his traveling with the president as part of the argument for why the cocaine may have belonged to him. Biden allies say that connection was inevitable no matter the circumstances.
“I’m not sure there’s anything anybody could say who would prevent the conservative social media world from being whipped into this frenzy. No facts matter to them so what does one say,” said the Democratic strategist and aide in a previous administration. “Regardless of what the investigation shows at the end of the day, there are those who come from that world who will say something is being covered up.”
The White House has dodged questions over how transparent they would be about any conclusions to the investigation — or if the culprit could ever be determined, exposing Biden to further GOP attacks as he heads into 2024.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is trailing Trump in the Republican presidential primary, took a jab at Biden over the situation, but left his son Hunter Biden out of his remarks.
“I’ve long believed, I think a lot of us have believed that the Biden administration’s been blowing it on a lot of fronts,” the presidential hopeful said. “But I guess it’s a little bit more literal than even I had thought.”