The Secret Service is looking for who took a bag of cocaine discovered Sunday night to a guest lobby of the west wing of the White House, a spokesman for the agency said Wednesday.
The spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, also said the agency had confirmed that the white, powdery substance found by an officer was cocaine, backing up the results of an early test by the Washington Fire Department.
The small plastic envelope was found in a part of the West Wing where visitors and employees often pass by during the day. When members of staff want to take family or friends on tours of the West Wing, they usually do so at night and on weekends.
A person familiar with the investigation said the bag was found near an area where guests are screened for security and leave their phones in small boxes. The Secret Service would not say exactly where the substance was found in the lobby or whether the agency cooperated with the White House to review guest logs. People familiar with the research say the area is so frequented by so many groups of people that it can be difficult to find the person who left the bag.
President Biden and his family were away from Camp David on Sunday when the pouch was found and officials briefly closed parts of the complex to assess whether the substance was dangerous. That night, a test of the substance by officials on the hazmat crew yielded a result: “We have a yellow bar that says cocaine hydrochloride,” an official said in a message sent at 8:49 p.m. recorded by a website that collects radio communications.
Biden returned with his family on Tuesday. He met with the Swedish prime minister in the Oval Office on Wednesday and did not respond to a question shouted by a reporter about the incident.
