Monday, July 3, 2023

Bag Of Coke Discovered On White House Grounds

The bare bones are as follows:

An 'unknown item' was found near the White House in Washington D.C. Roads surrounding the area were briefly closed as a precautionary measure.

. . . The DC Fire Department's Hazmat team responded and the White House grounds were evacuated as a precaution, the Secret Service spokesman Anthony Gugliemi added. DC Fire and EMS was contacted to evaluate, USSS said.

. . . DC Fire Hazmat officials report that they have found a substance that tests positive for Cocaine Hydrochloride, a highly addictive and illegal drug. The event has caused people to wonder how a possibly harmful material got onto the grounds of the White House and whether it was done on purpose to damage or intimidate the president or his team.

. . . The Secret Service announced that it was looking into the event and collaborating with other law enforcement organizations to ascertain the object's origin and nature.

. . . Hazmat teams were reportedly seen entering the White House's West Wing, which houses the president's office and residence, according to an eyewitnesses. It is unknown if the president was informed of the occurrence or was present when it occurred in the building. With numerous layers of security and screening, the West Wing is one of the most secure parts of the White House.

Initial reports described the discovery as "at the White House", but later ones, like the one above, said it was "near the White House", but apparently near enough that hazmat teams were seen entering the West Wing. The original statement from the Secret Service said,

"U.S. Secret Service Uniform Division Officers located an unknown item on the White House complex," a USSS spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The job of the Uniform Division is to protect the White House facilities, as opposed to the special agents, who protect the president, vice president, and their families. Legacy media, insofar as it covered the incident, tried to display confusion about just what "cocaine hydrochloride" is, tentatively suggesting it was some sort of nasal anesthetic. They got the nose part right, anyhow.

Those who watch On Patrol: Live or programs about customs and border enforcement know that when officers discover packets of unkown white powder, they immmediately apply field tests, and the typical positive return is specified as "cocaine hydrochloride", or just garden variety coke, nose candy.

This is almost certainly what took place early in last evening's process. I'm not sure why they called a hazmat team at all; certainly this isn't what the officers on On Patrol: Live do. If they find it in someone's pocket or in his car, they simply test the powder, note the result, read him his rights, and take him downtown, no shilly-shallying about in hazmat suits.

What we can reasonably surmise is that this was cocaine, it was enough to be noticed, and it was close enough to the West Wing and the residence to cause a flurry of activity. What we don't know is how it got there, except that tourists and other random people off the street don't get that close.

The Secret Service is "looking into the event", which suggests to me that we won't hear anything more about it. As of last week, reports were

President Joe Biden had made it clear to aides that he doesn't want to hear that he should keep son Hunter away amid the first son's ongoing legal drama.

. . . Biden is keeping Hunter close because he fears that the former crack cocaine addict could relapse amid the public scrutiny, sources told the network.

The pattern I've been seeing over the past year suggests to me that Hunter has long since relapsed, if he was ever off the stuff for very long. My surmise is that Hunter was able to circumvent his Secret Service minders at the Malibu compound, and it's likely that he hasn't been there much over the past year, while at the same time, it's hard for me not to think he and his wife Melissa have been living separate lives, also potentially due to Hunter's habit. Fox News reported last week,

[A] Fox News Digital review found that the visitor logs from the beginning of the Biden administration through February 2023 have not included any of Hunter Biden’s White House visits or extended stays.

Fox News Digital reviewed several articles to piece together Hunter Biden’s whereabouts during his dad’s administration and found that he has visited the White House over a dozen times through February 2023, the month accounted for in the most recent batch of visitor logs released last month.

A majority of the White House visits that Fox News Digital found were from 2022, which include the annual egg roll, Medal of Freedom ceremony, France State Dinner on the South Lawn, Christmas tree lighting, his daughter’s wedding, among others. However, they are all absent from the visitor logs, including what appear to be extended stays at the White House.

I would think that if Hunter is continuing his drug use, Joe has only two options. If he lets Hunter revert to his pre-2020 lifestyle of fast cars, hotels, hookers, and luxury rehab, that scandal will reemerge sooner rather than later, and it's entirely possible that Hunter's Secret Service minders in Malibu were reporting this could become a problem. If Joe keeps Hunter on a much shorter leash at the White House, this could potentially minimize the likelihood of problems like guns in the dumpster, lost laptops, wrecked rental cars, and the like -- but it doesn't completely eliminate exposure. Thus we'll still get the occasional lost bag of coke.

Both the Secret Service and the White House domestic staff have long traditions of absolute confidentiality over the presidential family's private affairs. I've got to assume, though, that Hunter is Hunter, and ash trays with crack pipes and other paraphernalia are routinely found there, along with heaven knows what else -- and both the Secret Service and the domestic staff are expected to clean up after him and keep it quiet. Did someone finally get fed up, maybe conveniently forget to pick up what Hunter had just dropped, and somehow arrange things so the bag of coke would somehow just randomly get found?

And this leaves aside the intricate question of coabuse and Joe's role in the whole situation.