WASHINGTON − The Secret Service concluded an investigation into cocaine found at the White House but was unable to determine who brought it into the building − nor do officials have any suspects.
“At this time, the Secret Service’s investigation is closed due to a lack of physical evidence,” the Secret Service said in a statement Thursday.
The FBI found no DNA or fingerprints on the baggie of cocaine, according to a summary of the findings by the Secret Service, providing no leads into who brought the cocaine into the White House.
The Secret Service’s review also included sifting through surveillance footage and visitor logs of several hundred individuals who had access to the West Wing lobby where the cocaine was found.
“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,” Secret Service officials said in the summary.
A suspicious powder, later identified as cocaine following tests, was found Sunday, July 2 while President Joe Biden was away from the White House at the Camp David presidential retreat. It prompted a brief evacuation for precautionary purposes.
The Secret Service said an agent found the cocaine within a storage box where White House visitors drop their cell phones inside the West Wing lobby, which serves as a reception room for visitors of White House personnel.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday his agency assisted the Secret Service by having lab personnel evaluate the white powder found at the White House.
“We have offered the full range of our assistance to the Secret Service, if they want to use us for that purpose,” Wray said, but he referred further questions to the Secret Service.
The lack of a suspect was met with skepticism by Republicans. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the Secret Service shouldn’t end its investigation.
“You can’t tell me in the White House with 24/7 surveillance and a cubbyhole by a situation room you don’t know who left it there,” McCarthy told reporters. “The American people think that’s a farce.”
The White House had promised “appropriate consequences” if the individual who brought the cocaine into the White House was a White House employee.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre last week expressed confidence the Secret Service would “get to the bottom” of the cocaine discovery and said Biden believes it’s “very important” to find out what happened.
White House staff are authorized to give West Wing tours to visitors who go through background screenings before being allowed on the White House campus. Guests and staff are subject to metal-detector screenings when they enter the White House premises.
Visitors enter the White House at the White House lobby, a high-traffic area where they are asked to leave their cellphones in small boxes.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of House Committee on Oversight, in a letter last week requested a briefing from the Secret Service on the discovery of the cocaine as part of its own investigation.
“The presence of illegal drugs in the White House is unacceptable and a shameful moment in the White House’s history,” Comer wrote.
Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.