The Other Suspect

Here's a news flash I picked up from my portal on the dark web that connects with the alternate universe:

WASHINGTON (AP) The FBI announced this morning that C Throckmorton "Buddy" Hollingsworth III, a Washington Post editor, has been identified as the person whose fingerprints were found on the plastic baggie of cocaine that was discovered by the Secret Service near the White House Situation Room on the evening of July 2. Mr Hollingsworth was arrested at his Dupont Circle home before dawn on felony charges of cocaine possession on federal property, as well as. . .

But here's a thought experiment. What if this had hit the news just the other day in our own universe. Do you think there would be one iota less speculation about the identity of the real culprit, and poor Buddy Hollingsworth would just be taking the fall for someone else? I can't speak to whether the FBI or the Secret Service has better credibility over there than over here -- remember that in that universe, the US has the Nixon dollar -- but over here, conspiracy theories would still rage, no matter how ironclad the case against Buddy Hollingsworth.

Thus on Breitbart yesterday morning, we saw:

Officials at the White House know who brought cocaine into the White House and have confirmed that finding via fingerprint analysis, according to a report which contradicts a statement released by the Secret Service.

A security source told Soldier of Fortune magazine, “We know who handled it… We’ve known since last week.”

So far, this hasn't gone anywhere, but the story did make a worthwhile point farther down, which appears to have been deleted from the current version. But per an earlier report from last August:

President Joe Biden on Wednesday named Kim Cheatle, a veteran Secret Service official, to be the agency’s next director as it faces controversy over missing text messages around the time thousands of supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol.

. . . Cheatle had served on Biden’s protective detail when he was vice president. During that time, Biden “came to trust” her judgment and counsel, he said in a statement.

Biden said that her [sic] and first lady Jill Biden “know firsthand Kim’s commitment to her job and to the Secret Service’s people and mission.”

But recall that it was reported at the time when Joe was vice president (and Hunter was also a protectee):

“Agents say that, whether at the vice president’s residence or at his home in Delaware, Biden has a habit of swimming in his pool nude," writes author Ronald Kessler, as quoted by the New York Daily News. "Female Secret Service agents find that offensive.”

But they can't take their eyes off him for a second, so allegedly must watch their boss let it all hang out while he floats to and fro. This "lack of consideration," Kessler writes, means that "being assigned to his detail is considered the second worst assignment in the Secret Service." The least popular detail, he claims, is Hillary Clinton's. (No word on her skinny dipping habits.)

And Kim Cheatle was the Secret Service agent who enabled all this and made it the second worst detail in the agency. So Joe, purely by coincidence, brought her back from the private sector and put her in charge of the whole show, Hunter and all. It would be interesting, though, to hear what the agents on the Kamala Harris detail think of that job, which brings me to the second person of interest in the Sit Room baggie case:

The drugs were actually found in a highly secure area of the White House "near the Situation Room," a place where "average people just can't get in" that also happens to be "where the vice president's vehicle is parked."

The cocaine's proximity to Vice President Kamala Harris's vehicle raises some troubling questions in light of her history prosecuting drug cases as San Francisco district attorney.

. . . Harris has a problematic history when it comes to cocaine. She occasionally cackles like a cokehead. The drugs were found near her vehicle. Coincidence?

But any idea that a cocaine scandal or anything like it wouid push Kamala off the ticket or even bring about an Agnew-style resignation is pure wishful thinking. The Washington Examiner toys with the idea but puts it down again:

“How do you solve a problem like Kamala? The sense is she doesn’t fit in. The sense is she’s not an asset to the administration,” said Democratic pollster John Zogby.

“So what do you do with Vice President Kamala Harris when you’re running a tight reelection race?” he said in an online “riff” with his son and fellow pollster Jeremy Zogby.

Jeremy Zogby, the managing partner of John Zogby Strategies, was even harder on Harris.

“She’s a major problem,” he said. “She’s not a good communicator. She can barely communicate a complicated idea. There’s a lot of cackling, there’s a lot of avoiding answering questions directly, there’s a lot of theatrics,” he added.

The duo suggested that Biden push her into another job, such as United Nations ambassador, to make way for another vice presidential pick that might help him in the reelection campaign — or make it easier for Biden to step aside and let a rising Democratic star such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) get the nomination.

But that notion runs into the obstacle I've already been discussing, there are no "rising Democratic stars" who can get the nomination away from Joe, while as the piece puts it, the "first-ever female and black vice president is worth more on the ticket than off". But we're also back to the Barack Obama conundrum: like Obama, Harris has a certain minimal presence of melanin in her skin cells, but she isn't a descendant of African slaves, and she's married, more or less, to a rich white guy. This is the sort of black candidate the Democrats will put up for a national election, and so far, the population authentically descended from African slaves hasn't pushed back on this.

So for now, this isn't an issue and won't be unless the Republicans nominate an actual descendant of African slaves for either spot in 2024. Instead, we have a Secret Service head who has a demonstrated ability to keep potential scandals in the presidential and vice presidential families quiet, and who was almost certainly selected for that reason. Remember that in at least 2015 and 2016, while Joe was vice president and Hunter was a protectee, numerous e-mails on the laptop show Hunter setting up deals to buy cocaine on the street in Wilmington, and in October of that year,

Hunter arranged to go to rehab in Sedona, Arizona. During a layover in Los Angeles, he realized he left his wallet on the plane. While waiting for his wallet in LA, he went to Pershing Square and asked a homeless man where he could buy crack.

He bought crack several times that week, The New Yorker reported. After days of not sleeping, on Oct. 28, Hunter was driving on Interstate 10 near Palm Springs and eventually lost control of the car.

He returned the car to Hertz, where he had rented it under a false name. Nevertheless, according to a contemporary Prescott, AZ police report, the Secret Service got involved and among other things confirmed to Hertz that the renter was Hunter Biden. So basically the Secret Service appears to have been monitoring Hunter throughout this episode, if it wasn't escorting him directly, and as far as we can tell was fully aware that he was buying cocaine on the street, and they worked to keep the whole matter quiet.

All the evidence we have is that the Secret Service has been enabling cocaine use -- and no doubt other illicit activity -- by protectees for quite some time, at least since Joe's vice presidency, and they'll continue to cover it up. That's why Kim Cheatle is director now. If either Hunter or Kamala was responsible for the Sit Room baggie, that fix is in.

I've got to assume Speaker McCarthy, Chairman Comer, and Sen Grassley, among others, are fully aware of this. I'm wondering if they have a case for the Secret Service enabling or covering for protectees as they commit federal felonies. Shouldn't this be an issue?