The story of the cocaine found at the White House will be with us for a while. One reason is because the White House is not doing a great job in managing the story.

A reporter traveling on Air Force One today with the president asked Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, about the “wild” posts Trump has been making about the cocaine found at the White House. Bates was asked about Trump’s accusation that the coke was probably Hunter’s or his father’s. His answer was odd. Bates brought up the Hatch Act as a reason not to answer.

To recap, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was found to have violated the Hatch Act and provided election interference before the midterm elections in 2022 by using the term “Mega MAGA Republicans” from the podium in the press briefing room. According to the OSC, using MAGA is off-limits because Trump is a candidate again and it is a campaign slogan. Because KJP is the president’s spokesperson, and he is also a candidate, when she repeats those words, she is providing election interference under the Hatch Act.

OSC decided that “federal employees should not use “MAGA” or “Make America Great Again” while on duty, in the workplace, or when acting in their official capacity, including communicating through social media, email, or on government websites.” At the time, KJP brushed off the violation and said she was given clearance to use it when she did. From whom that clearance came, she didn’t say. Not long after that, though, Andrew Bates released a memo that was a jab in the eye of the OSC because he deliberately used “MAGA” in it.

Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates wrote in a memo that Republicans’ “main economic agenda item” is “MAGA tax welfare for the richest Americans and giant corporations, at the expense of continuing to grow our economy by investing in America.”

It indicated that the White House communications department really had no intention of following the OSC’s guidance. That tracked at the time with the general arrogance of the Biden White House and it’s roster of woefully inept and incompetent staff.

Today when Bates was asked about the cocaine, suddenly he is all about keeping his mouth shut out of an abundance of caution over potentially violating the Hatch Act. Weird.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates was asked about ‘pretty wild’ posts by the former president, who claimed cocaine discovered at the White House Sunday belonged to the president or his son Hunter, who has acknowledged illegal drug use in the past but says he is clean now.

‘I don’t have a response to that because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act,’ Bates responded, invoking the law barring politicking by government officials during their official duties. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has regularly used the law as a crutch during briefings, but recently got her own warning about running afoul of its intricacies from the Office of Special Counsel.

On claims "the cocaine found in the White House had belonged to either the president or his son. Are you willing to say that that's not the case?"

Mid-level Biden staffer Andrew Bates: "I don't have a response to that because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act" pic.twitter.com/zuM30v5Fli

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 6, 2023

Rules will be followed when it suits them. When the topic is uncomfortable, it’s a potential violation of the Hatch Act to talk about it. Otherwise, they will let their hot takes rip for reporters.

Bates lamely tried to turn the tables on Trump and spoke about the former president’s record versus Biden’s economic record. It’s Bidenomics week, you know, and Biden (and Bates) were en route to South Carolina to campaign on Biden’s stellar economic record. I know. I couldn’t even type that without chuckling out loud.

‘What I will say is that I have noticed there does seem to be some increasing frustration coming from that corner in general. And I think it is probably rooted in the contrast between their substantive policy records,’ he said.

He touted job growth in manufacturing and infrastructure investments, which Biden plans to tout on a trip to South Carolina Thursday.

He said ‘infrastructure is no longer a punch line’ in reference to the Trump-era ‘infrastructure weeks.’

‘We have doubled the construction of manufacturing facilities in just two and a half years, whereas during the previous administration, it only grew at an anemic 2 per cent,’ said Bates.

That’s amusing. Any honest broker can compare real numbers and knows that the Trump economy was exploding and hitting numbers not seen before in economic growth. He is the president who brought jobs back from overseas – America First policies that Biden now claims as his own. Joe Biden took a recovering economy from the pandemic when he took office and blew it all up with trillions of dollars in federal spending. Inflation hit a 40 year high, every economic indicator was bad news, and all of Biden’s bone-headed decisions continue to linger within the economy. Middle class and lower class Americans are struggling as they have not in years to make ends meet. That is on Joe Biden. There is a reason Biden has such low approval ratings.

Most dishonestly, Biden continues to take credit for “millions” of jobs created when most have been jobs brought back after the pandemic. They are not new jobs.

Nonetheless, watch the press corps cover for Biden and Hunter. Just as legacy networks and some cable news channels laughed the cocaine story off as good entertainment, now some political reporters are saying we may never know who put the cocaine in that cubby in the West Wing. The Secret Service is investigating. Senator Tom Cotton has some questions and wants Congress to be briefed about illicit drugs in the White House.

Stay tuned. This story isn’t over yet.