A white substance that sparked an emergency evacuation at the White House on Sunday night, July 2, has been discovered to be cocaine following a test that was carried out.
The powder was found in a publicly accessible area of the West Wing on Sunday evening and prompted a brief evacuation of the complex.
President Joe Biden was not present at the time, as he was enjoying a weekend retreat at Camp David.
The Secret Service, responsible for presidential security, swiftly responded to the situation, with fire and emergency service personnel conducting initial tests on the mater on the material. These tests revealed that the substance was indeed cocaine.
Authorities are now trying to determine how the substance got into the White House after a Secret Service agent found the powder during a routine sweep of the premises.
First son Hunter Biden, 53, who has acknowledged a prior addiction to crack cocaine, was on the White House grounds on Friday, June 30, before heading off to Camp David with his father for the holiday weekend. They returned to Washington Tuesday morning.
Rumors circulated in April that the first son may have also been living at the White House for a time to avoid being served by the mother of his love child.
In his memoir “Beautiful Things,” Hunter detailed his years-long battle with cocaine addiction, which he said intensified after the death of his brother Beau in 2015.
Many photos, text messages and other communications revealing his cocaine abuse ended up on the first son’s now infamous laptop, including recently surfaced images of Hunter smoking crack behind the wheel of his car in a residential Arlington, Va., neighborhood in the summer of 2018.
Cocaine is a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has a high potential for abuse, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
The West Wing is a large, multi-level part of the White House that contains the offices of the president of the United States, including the Oval Office and the Situation Room.
It also houses the offices of the vice-president, the White House chief of staff, the press secretary, and hundreds of other staff who have access.