WASHINGTON ― The Secret Service on Thursday told politicians on Capitol Hill that it will close its investigation into cocaine discovered at the White House without finding a culprit.
During a routine security check earlier this month, the Secret Service found a bag of white powder in a cubby where visitors and staff members stash belongings.
“They were unable to determine who deposited it in the cubby there on way in or the way out,” Representative Jamie Raskin (Democrat) told reporters. “So it seems like at this point it’s just inconclusive.”
Republicans criticised the Secret Service for not locating a perpetrator and even suggested that corruption was afoot.
“It’s just interesting that every time there’s something strange going on with President [Joe] Biden or his family, or his administration in the White House, no one can ever seem to find an answer,” Representative Nancy Mace (Republican) said, apparently referring to Republicans’ own failure to find evidence linking the president to crimes.
Using White House records, investigators narrowed the list of potential suspects to 500 people who’d been in and out of the building within days of the cocaine’s discovery.
“This is a failure of this investigation to not perform a drug test on these people,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican) said.
Raskin mocked that idea from his Republican colleagues. “These are the same people who are opposed to Covid-19 tests, so I don’t see a lot of coherence in the criticism,” he said.
In an internal summary of the investigation obtained by The Associated Press, the Secret Service said it couldn’t find fingerprints or DNA evidence on the bag, which contained less than one gram of cocaine.
“Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered,” the document said.
Senator Tom Cotton (Republican), who last week asked the Secret Service a set of questions about the peoople who have access to the White House, complained on Twitter.
“High schools can figure out when kids brings marijuana, but the White House can’t figure out who brought a bag of cocaine? What a joke,” Cotton said.