(Trends Wide) — The Secret Service concluded its investigation into the small bag of cocaine found at the White House and was unable to identify a suspect, two sources familiar with the investigation told Trends Wide.
Secret Service officials reviewed visitor logs and surveillance footage of hundreds of people who entered the West Wing in the days before the discovery and were unable to identify a suspect, one of the sources said.
Investigators were also unable to identify the exact time or day the bag was left in the West Wing cubicle near the ground floor entrance where it was discovered.
The second source said the leading theory remains that it was left behind by one of the hundreds of visitors who entered the West Wing that weekend for visits and were asked to leave their phones inside those cubicles.
The cubicles where the small bag of cocaine was found are a blind spot for surveillance cameras, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Although there is surveillance around where the bag was found, the cameras are not pointed directly at the West Wing cubicles near the lower-level entrance where it was discovered, the source said, making it difficult to identify who left the bag.
The White House and the Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trends Wide previously reported that cocaine had been found in a cubicle near the West Wing ground-floor entrance, where White House staff tours pass on their way to the building.
Visitors entering the West Wing for guided tours are asked to leave their phones in those cubbies, which can also be used by staff who cannot take their phones into a SCIF, or compartmentalized sensitive information facility, where classified material is handled. The cubicles are located near the Situation Room, which has not been used for months due to ongoing renovations.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre last week expressed confidence that the Secret Service would “get to the bottom” of the incident.
The discovery of a powdery substance by Secret Service personnel making routine rounds of the building had prompted a brief evacuation as part of what the Secret Service described as a “precautionary lockdown.”
The Secret Service briefed the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on the case Thursday morning. Walking out of that briefing, Republican Rep. Tim Burchett told Trends Wide the case was “the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
He said the bag of cocaine, less than a gram, was found in a White House locker, but he said law enforcement doesn’t have any leads on a possible suspect and doesn’t know if it was a White House official or a visitor.
“They’ve all been to the White House. I mean, I’m sure they have facial ID and everything, and to say they don’t know who it is, to me, someone should lose their job over this, a lot of people,” he said.
He added: “Someone walks into the White House, the most secure building in the United States, in the world, actually, and they can put something in a locker. What if it was a biological entity? What if it was something emergent that It would, you know, mature in a few days and could…? That’s a lot of questions.”