As tests revealed the material found in the White House to be cocaine, President Joe Biden grinned and shrugged off inquiries.
On Wednesday, reporters questioned Biden in the Oval Office about the cocaine that had been found three days earlier and had caused a brief evacuation.
The Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was seated across from the US president, who grinned broadly and ignored the questioning.
Biden remained silent as a Secret Service spokesman told CNN that lab testing of the white substance came back positive for cocaine. Field testing had already shown that the substance was cocaine, but it was then sent for more evaluation.
The substance was spotted by the ground floor entrance to the West Wing, where staff-led tours of the White House enter, usually on the weekends, a source told CNN. It is near where visitors must leave their cell phones. Sources have also said that the substance was in a small, zipped baggie.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday said that White House tours recently took place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Asked if it was possible that a visitor left the cocaine, she said: ‘It is where visitors to the West Wing come through. I’m not going to speculate on who it was.’
Jean-Pierre said that Biden was briefed on ‘everything we know so far’ around the incident.
‘We have confidence that they will get to the bottom of this,’ she said.
Biden ignored questions on the matter on Tuesday, Independence Day, as well. Instead, the president invited his son Hunter Biden, who has acknowledged he used to be addicted to crack cocaine, to stand with him on a White House balcony to watch Fourth of July celebrations. They were accompanied by family members including First Lady Jill Biden, Hunter’s three-year-old son Beau and his wife Melissa.
On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump joined other conservatives in claiming without evidence that the president and Hunter are linked to the substance.
‘Does anybody really believe that the COCAINE found in the West Wing of the White House, very close to the Oval Office, is for the use of anyone other than Hunter & Joe Biden?’ wrote Trump on his Truth Social platform.
Trump then used the incident as an example of what he considers unfair treatment and coverage of himself compared to Biden.
‘But watch, the Fake News Media will soon start saying that the amount found was “very small,” & it wasn’t really COCAINE, but rather common ground up Aspirin, & the story will vanish.’