You’ve got J.J. Cale’s “Cocaine” and Eric Clapton’s cover. You’ve got Reverend Gary Davis’s venerable “Cocaine Blues” and adaptations by Dave Van Ronk, Jackson Browne, and others. Jackson even has a “rehab version” (“look at me now, sharp as a tack except for a few billion brain cells I wouldn’t mind having back”). You’ve got “Casey Jones” by Hunter and Garcia. You’ve got “Gold Dust Woman” by Stevie Nicks and and what must be a thousand more such songs. There’s no mystery. They speak from experience and they’re all good songs.
But who left the baggie of cocaine in the “work area” of the West Wing of the White House — that’s a mystery. The famous former crack addict hanging out at the White House isn’t talking. He is presumed innocent. However, commenters outside the White House are not bound by the presumption. Hunter Biden, by the way, was last seen on the White House balcony watching July 4th fireworks with his loving father.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre isn’t talking, although she did want it known that the cocaine was found in a “a heavily — heavily traf- — heavily traveled” area of the White House. For some reason she caught herself before saying “heavily trafficked.”
The Secret Service is investigating. The matter is within “their purview,” according to KJP. She said it some 13 times at yesterday’s White House press briefing (transcript here). Somebody get her a thesaurus!
Politico’s Daniel Lippman reported with a straight face that “one official familiar with the investigation cautioned that the source of the drug was unlikely to be determined given that it was discovered in a highly trafficked area of the West Wing.” At least Lippman said “trafficked.”
The Politico story adds: “The small amount of cocaine was found in a cubby area for storing electronics within the West Exec basement entryway into the West Wing, where many people have authorized access, including staff or visitors coming in for West Wing tours.” The possible perpetrators are legion. The case may never be cracked.
Is there no fingerprint or DNA on the baggie? Is video unavailable, as in the matter of Jeffrey Epstein’s death? This is probably not the toughest case in the world to “crack” — unless you don’t want to, or unless Inspector Clouseau is in charge of the investigation.
UPDATE: Miranda Devine sums it up this way in her New York Post newsletter this morning: “[T]he culprit is unlikely to be Hunter Biden, now that the Secret Service has revealed that the nose candy was not found in the private library in the president’s residence where The First Son has free rein. Instead it was found next door, in a staff area of the West Wing, so the pool of potential suspects has widened considerably. We have been promised a thorough investigation and, in the most secured location in the country, that ought to be an easy task. But, like the Supreme Court leaker, we won’t be surprised if the identity remains a mystery.”
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