Post ‘irresponsible’ for asking about cocaine in White House

WASHINGTON – White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called The Post “irresponsible” Friday for asking point-blank whether cocaine found in the West Wing last weekend belonged to any member of the first family.

“Can you say once and for all whether or the not the cocaine belonged to the Biden family?” The Post inquired during Jean-Pierre’s regular briefing.

The inquiry came one day after deputy press secretary Andrew Bates declined to answer a similar question by bizarrely invoking the Hatch Act, which restricts White House employees from using their platform for campaign purposes.

Rather than citing the ongoing Secret Service investigation into the incident or expressing confidence that the drug did not belong to anyone working or living in the White House, Jean-Pierre rounded on the reporter.

“You know, there has been some irresponsible reporting about the family,” the press secretary began.

“And, uh, and so I’ve got to call that out here.”

“And I have been very clear, I was clear two days ago when talking about this over and over again as I was being asked the question, as you know, and media outlets reported this, the Biden family was not here,” Jean-Pierre added.

“They were not here. They were at Camp David. They were not here Friday, they were not here Saturday or Sunday, they were not even here Monday. They came back on Tuesday. So to ask that question is actually incredibly irresponsible, and I’ll just leave it there.”

Moments earlier, Jean-Pierre defended Bates’ non-response a day earlier.

“He mentioned the Hatch Act because the question was posed to him using Donald Trump,” she said.

“So he was trying to be very mindful … and so that’s why he said the Hatch Act. So I would, you know, have you read the transcript and read the transcript fully so you can see exactly what he was trying to say.”

In fact, the first family — including first son Hunter Biden, an admitted past crack cocaine addict — did not leave the White House for Camp David until around 6:30 p.m. on Friday, June 30, almost exactly 48 hours before the dime-sized bag of illicit white powder was found by a Secret Service agent on a routine patrol.

In addition, while the question Bates declined to answer was pinned to claims by the former president that the drugs belonged to the president or his son, the actual query went: “Are you willing to say that that’s not the case, that they don’t belong to them?”

Five days after the drugs were discovered in a cubby near the West Wing’s basement entrance and steps from the Situation Room, the White House has yet to flat-out deny that the cocaine belonged to any member of the president’s family or staff, instead referring reporters to the Secret Service — though that didn’t stop Jean-Pierre from telling reporters Friday that “we’ve answered this question, litigated this question for the last few days, exhaustively.”

Elsewhere in the briefing, national security adviser Jake Sullivan appeared to suggest that outside workers may have been responsible for the cocaine getting inside one of the most secure buildings in the world.

“The Situation Room is not in use and has not been used for months because it is currently under construction. We are using an alternative Situation Room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building [next door to the White House] so the only people coming in and going out of the room in this period have been workers who are getting it ready to go,” Sullivan said.

The national security adviser also talked up “rigorous drug testing policies at the White House.”

“If it involves someone from the White House, the appropriate consequences will ensue,” he vowed. “If it involves some visitor who came in and left it, then that’s a different matter that raises a different set of questions that are less relevant.”

Initial reports Sunday night indicated the bag of cocaine was found in the White House library.

Those stemmed from a garbled audio recording of responding DC firefighters who mentioned “the library” in relation to the cocaine.

However, the first responders were actually referring to a field test of the cocaine not testing positive against any substance in their hazardous materials “library,” according to freelance journalist Andrew Leyden, who first broke the story after noticing a Hazmat team at the executive mansion.