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Congressional Republicans fumed on the Secret Service ending the White Home drug probe with no offender, and questioned what it means for safety within the White Home and transparency within the Biden administration.
Republicans on the Hill weren’t pleased with the Secret Service’s investigation into the cocaine discovered on the White Home over the Independence Day weekend, with Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., telling Fox Information Digital he was “disgusted” that the briefing was labeled after “they informed us within the assembly that it was not labeled.”
“They need to have transparency and instantly had alerted the press to that,” Burchett mentioned. “They need to have been telling the press as a substitute of a bunch of congressmen in order that they’d piecemeal all of it collectively out to the press.”
SECRET SERVICE CLOSES WHITE HOUSE COCAINE INVESTIGATION, SAYS IT IS ‘NOT ABLE’ TO IDENTIFY SUSPECT
![Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., attends a hearing with the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials in the Rayburn House Office Building on June 6, 2023 in Washington, D.C.](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/07/640/320/GettyImages-1496474450.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Republicans on the Hill weren’t pleased with the Secret Service’s investigation into the cocaine discovered on the White Home over the Independence Day weekend, with Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., telling Fox Information Digital he was “disgusted” that the briefing was labeled after “they informed us within the assembly that it was not labeled.” (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Pictures)
Burchett mentioned he “felt sorry” for the Secret Service brokers and that “they’re skilled folks, and so they’re simply put in a nasty place by this administration.”
The Tennessee Republican mentioned the Secret Service informed lawmakers there’s “no video of the realm” the place the cocaine was discovered and known as it “100% suspicious.”
“You have bought the press secretary of the president of the USA, she’s telling us the place it was discovered. After which, after all, it wasn’t discovered there,” Burchett mentioned. “[It’s] just like the bag of cocaine bought legs, apparently. And, , it is simply ridiculous. The entire thing is ridiculous.”
“To assume that essentially the most safe constructing on the earth, dude,” Burchett mentioned. “I imply, once I was mayor of Knox County, if anyone walked into certainly one of our buildings, we had cameras.”
Burchett mentioned that if he had been to name the Knox County Police Division to D.C., they’d “do circles” across the Secret Service.
![Bob Latta](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2022/10/640/320/GettyImages-492462543.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Ohio Rep. Bob Latta, a Republican, informed Fox Information Digital the “West Wing of the White Home needs to be one of the vital safe authorities workplaces within the nation.” (CQ Roll Name)
“That is ridiculous. That is past the pale,” Burchett mentioned. “That is indicative of a White home that’s uncontrolled and that has no management and is rudderless.”
“This trash can must be cleaned out with a backyard hose instantly,” he added.
LAWMAKERS BAFFLED ON WHY WHITE HOUSE COCAINE PROBE IS TAKING SO LONG
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., who sits on the Home Intelligence Committee, informed Fox Information Digital it “is ridiculous that the Secret Service needs us to consider that, even with the FBI’s assist, they’ll’t establish a suspect who introduced cocaine into essentially the most safe constructing on the earth.”
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Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., who sits on the Home Intelligence Committee, informed Fox Information Digital it “is ridiculous that the Secret Service needs us to consider that, even with the FBI’s assist, they’ll’t establish a suspect who introduced cocaine into essentially the most safe constructing on the earth.” (Rep. Austin Scott/Fox Information Digital)
“Why would you shut the investigation in lower than every week should you needed to know who did it?” Austin added.
Ohio Rep. Bob Latta, a Republican, informed Fox Information Digital that the “West Wing of the White Home needs to be one of the vital safe authorities workplaces within the nation.”
“The very fact cocaine was discovered on the premises raises main safety issues, and it’s unacceptable the Secret Service is now abandoning their investigation with out even ID’ing a suspect,” Latta continued.
![Republican Texas Congressman Troy Nehls](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/01/640/320/GettyImages-1242035145-e1673468386429.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) speaks throughout a press convention on the Capitol Triangle on July 21, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Nathan Howard/Getty Pictures)
Texas GOP Rep. Troy Nehls, a former sheriff, informed Fox Information Digital mentioned that President Biden’s son Hunter’s historical past with drug abuse ought to have made the Secret Service take into account him “an individual of curiosity.”
“With Hunter Biden’s previous documented habits and use of the very same substance, one may consider that he can be at the least thought-about an individual of curiosity,” Nehls mentioned. “Individuals deserve solutions about how cocaine was present in one of the vital safe buildings on the earth.”
White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rebuked reporters final week for asking whether or not the cocaine was associated to any Biden members of the family, saying the query was “extremely irresponsible.”
![Pete Sessions](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2022/12/640/320/GettyImages-1243408363.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Texas Republican Rep. Pete Periods informed Fox Information Digital he’s “deeply unsettled by the Secret Service closing their investigation with out figuring out the offender.” (Bloomberg)
Texas Republican Rep. Pete Periods informed Fox Information Digital he’s “deeply unsettled by the Secret Service closing their investigation with out figuring out the offender.”
“An absence of surveillance footage in a ‘closely trafficked’ space close to the West Government entrance is unacceptable,” Periods mentioned. “This incident is not nearly an unlawful substance discovered within the White Home; it is a grave testomony to the missing accountability and disrespect for safety underneath the Biden administration.”
“It’s vital that the White Home reassess and strengthen our safety measures to stop this state of affairs from occurring once more, and that each particular person throughout the White Home is held to the very best requirements of conduct and accountability,” he added.
![Kevin McCarthy](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/06/640/320/Kevin-McCarthy_Interview.png?ve=1&tl=1)
Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., informed reporters on Thursday that it appears to him that “Biden Inc. strikes once more.” (Fox Information Digital/Catenacci)
Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., informed reporters on Thursday that it appears to him that “Biden Inc. strikes once more.”
“How can within the White Home — 24/7 safety — they discover cocaine, however now they only closed the investigation?” McCarthy requested. “The place within the nation do you get handled like this? Solely with the Bidens, with the Bidens in cost. There isn’t a equal justice.”
The speaker mentioned he needs “to see a solution to the query like each different American” on how there was “cocaine sitting in a cubbyhole simply by the State of affairs Room.”
“To begin with, we by no means bought the precise information. We discovered it in other places, completely different locations, completely different locations. . . . Something involving round Biden Inc. will get handled otherwise than some other American, and that is bought to cease.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., informed Fox Information Digital that, throughout the briefing, she had inquired about particular safety measures in place for the lockers the place the cocaine had been discovered. Boebert mentioned the Secret Service had admitted that the important thing to the locker in query “is lacking.”
NOT JUST COCAINE: SECRET SERVICE REVEALS ANOTHER BANNED SUBSTANCE WAS FOUND IN BIDEN’S WHITE HOUSE
“There are 182 lockers in that lobby and presently … locker quantity 50 the place the cocaine was discovered, that key’s lacking,” Boebert mentioned. “There have been greater than 500 individuals who went via the West Wing throughout the weekend of when this substance was discovered, when the cocaine was discovered within the White Home, and none of these individuals who have come via are labeled as suspects.”
“We have no idea what number of had been vacationers, particular person residents, or staffers, and so they presently will not be trying any additional into these greater than 500 individuals who entered that lobby of the West Wing throughout that weekend,” she mentioned. “As an alternative, they’re shortly wanting to shut this investigation and transfer on to the subsequent Biden crime disaster.”
Boebert additionally informed Fox Information that she realized that “there are not any logs of the lockers. There is no video surveillance of the lockers.”
“The one factor that the Secret Service did was conduct background searches for previous drug use or conviction of the over 500 people that got here via that weekend,” Boebert mentioned. “They didn’t go additional again in time, nor did their investigation produce any outcomes to flag a person individual.”
She added, “I consider that each staffer who went into the White Home that weekend … needs to be drug examined.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., defended the Secret Service, saying that testing tons of of potential suspects for medication can be “a massively disproportionate and overblown response that might violate folks’s civil liberties.”
“I imply, if there have been small quantities of marijuana or cocaine discovered someplace within the Capitol Advanced, we’d not wish to drug check everyone who works right here,” he mentioned.
![Lauren Boebert walking](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/06/640/320/GettyImages-1401782585.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., informed Fox Information Digital that, throughout the briefing, she had inquired about particular safety measures in place for the lockers the place the cocaine was discovered. Boebert mentioned the Secret Service admitted that the important thing to the locker in query “is lacking.” (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Pictures)
The Secret Service introduced Thursday that it has closed its investigation into the cocaine discovered on the White Home earlier this month and mentioned it’s “not in a position” to “single out an individual of curiosity” due to an absence of bodily proof.
In a press release Thursday, after briefing members of Congress on the matter, the Secret Service mentioned the cocaine had been discovered on July 2 “inside a receptacle used to briefly retailer digital and private gadgets previous to getting into the West Wing.”
The Secret Service mentioned it has been investigating “how this merchandise entered the White Home,” together with a “methodical evaluate of safety programs and protocols.”
EXPERTS BAFFLED BY WHITE HOUSE INVOKING HATCH ACT TO DODGE HUNTER COCAINE QUESTION: ‘RIDICULOUS’
“This evaluate included a backwards examination that spanned a number of days previous to the invention of the substance and developed an index of a number of hundred people who could have accessed the realm the place the substance was discovered,” the Secret Service mentioned. It mentioned that investigators had developed “a pool of recognized individuals for comparability of forensic proof gleaned from the FBI’s evaluation of the substance’s packaging.”
The Secret Service mentioned it had acquired the FBI’s lab outcomes on Wednesday and that the hassle “didn’t develop latent fingerprints and inadequate DNA was current for investigative comparisons.”
“Subsequently, the Secret Service shouldn’t be capable of examine proof in opposition to the recognized pool of people,” the Secret Service mentioned, including that the FBl’s analysis of the substance “additionally confirmed that it was cocaine.”
![White House Pride Biden](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/06/640/320/White-House-Pride-4-e1686419726681.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
The Secret Service mentioned it has been investigating “how this merchandise entered the White Home,” together with a “methodical evaluate of safety programs and protocols.” (White Home)
“There was no surveillance video footage discovered that offered investigative leads or some other means for investigators to establish who could have deposited the discovered substance on this space,” the Secret Service continued. “With out bodily proof, the investigation will be unable to single out an individual of curiosity from the tons of of people who handed via the vestibule the place the cocaine was found.”
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“At the moment, the Secret Service’s investigation is closed on account of an absence of bodily proof,” they mentioned.
The Secret Service briefed members of Congress on the investigation Thursday morning.
Fox Information Digital’s Brooke Singman and Elizabeth Elkind contributed reporting.
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