Quelle surprise. Did anyone really expect this investigation to pin the tail on anyone, let alone the kind of figure that might have Situation Room access in this administration?

The Secret Service told Congress this morning that they couldn’t crack the case of the West Wing cocaine baggie:

The Secret Service has concluded its investigation into the small bag of cocaine found at the White House and has been unable to identify a suspect, two sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.

Secret Service officials combed through visitor logs and surveillance footage of hundreds of individuals who entered the West Wing in the days preceding the discovery and were unable to identify a suspect, one of the sources said.

Investigators were also unable to identify the particular moment or day when the baggie was left inside the West Wing cubby near the lower level entrance where it was discovered.

But hey, at least they limited the suspect pool to, um … 500:

From colleague Kelly Phares. after briefing on cocaine found at the WH, GOP GA Rep Greene says USSS says it narrowed down the list of potential suspects to 500 people as to who it belong to

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 13, 2023

And this seems even more weird than the failure itself:

No fingerprints or DNA turned up on the baggie of cocaine found in a lobby at the White House last week despite a sophisticated FBI crime lab analysis, and surveillance footage of the area didn’t identify a suspect, according to a summary of the Secret Service investigation obtained by The Associated Press. There are no leads on who brought the drugs into the building.

Say what? How would that be possible? Plastic does keep fingerprints pretty well, and of course any casual contact would leave traces of DNA. That would indicate that either (a) someone walked around with it while wearing gloves and other ways of sealing themselves from physical contact with the baggie, or (b) someone cleaned it up.

Add to that this question: what about surveillance cameras? Presumably, the West Wing should fairly hum with security equipment, especially surveillance systems. How else do they protect the office of the Leader of the Free World? It seems very, very difficult to believe that someone could sneak this kind of contraband into the office/residence of the president and not be able to be identified, at least after the fact. If this bag contained anthrax rather than cocaine, are we to assume that the Secret Service couldn’t have determined who brought it into the White House?

This seems like a case of investigators not wanting to get to the bottom of a mystery more than having insurmountable obstacles to the solution. It sounds as familiar as the Department of Justice taking five years to investigate Hunter Biden’s tax evasions, and Christopher Wray’s claim that five months isn’t enough for him to investigate his own office in Richmond for proposing surveillance on “rad-trad Catholics.” It smells like a cover-up … again.