Ex-CBP head: 'Literally should take' about 30 minutes to ID who brought cocaine into White House

Mark Morgan, a former FBI agent and acting commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection Agency, told Just the News that it should take the U.S. Secret Service about 30 minutes to figure out how cocaine came into the White House and who brought it there.

"I was there countless times, I put my cell phone in that exact box that they're talking about. I know it well. Oftentimes, there is a marine that's standing there. This literally should take them about 30 minutes to solve," Morgan said on Wednesday.

"Everybody that comes in, not just the White House grounds, but also everybody that comes into that space, right, where you have to check that cell phone, they're accounted for. There's a manifest. There are cameras. I could go on. This literally should take them about 30 minutes to figure out whose cocaine it was," he added.

He noted that it's still an federal offense to bring an illegal drug like cocaine onto federal property. Morgan said he wouldn't be surprised if the public never finds out whose cocaine was at the White House, given that the individual who leaked the Supreme Court's June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade was not publicly identified. 

A U.S. Secret Service test has confirmed that the substance found on Sunday night at the White House was cocaine. The source of the cocaine is still is under investigation. It was reportedly found in the West Wing. 

It's not surprising that cocaine was discovered at the White House, given the level of drug trafficking happening at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Biden administration, according to Bobby Charles, assistant secretary of state at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs in the Bush administration.

Charles said the Biden administration isn't paying enough attention to the illicit activity happening at the border, which leads to illegal drugs ending up in U.S. communities.

"Whether it was a series of staffers, who apparently might be deeply involved, or one staffer or Hunter Biden himself, it doesn't really matter. The reality is that you have a president and a White House that have a disregard for the law, they really don't care," Charles said during an interview with Just the News.

"And so everything rolls downhill when the president of the United States can get away, literally, with almost, you know, with federal bribery and RICO violations, and the Attorney General doesn't give a damn and doesn't prosecute, doesn't pick up the pen and doesn't even talk about it," he added.

Charles said Americans are dealing with the effects of illegal drugs coming over the border in their communities, particularly fentanyl. 

"Just like you see illegal aliens pop up on the local corner, far more prolific is the distribution of all of these drugs, cocaine, heroin, other synthetics, fentanyl, and, of course, runaway high potency marijuana. All of this is everywhere now. And why?" he said. "Because this administration has basically looked the other way on an issue that is affecting human lives as much as shutting down the energy sector. I mean, it's no surprise that we're losing confidence in government."

Charles compared the amount of deaths from illegal drugs to 1989 to support his statements.

"When George Herbert Walker Bush gave an address to the American people in September of 1989 about the drug issue, he was horrified because we had 5,000 American kids who had died. We had 105,000-108,000 last year and law enforcement tells me it'll be 130,000 next year," he said.

Retired FBI agent Scott Nelson argued the "border is wide open" and the cocaine found at the White House is the latest example of it.

"So that cocaine issue in the White House has an awful lot to do with the American developing mentality that says drugs are okay, being induced to crime by drugs is okay because those who do it are in fact the underprivileged and the border is secure, which is an absolute falsehood," he said. "The border is wide open, if you talk to any law enforcement or FBI agents down there, they will tell you that the minimum amount of effort has been put in the border, folks on the terrorist watch list are coming through, hundreds of folks aged 16 to 24."

Nelson argued that it's "hypocritical" for cocaine to be found at the White House while the public is being told the drug war is over during a border crisis.

"What's ironic about this cocaine in the West Wing is the fact that it's there at the same time, while the president and many other politicians are saying the drug war is over, they're saying that in the same way that they said the war in Afghanistan is over," he said. "And they pulled the plug on the so-called drug war at a particular time in our country, when it's even more important to fight a so-called war."

According to the U.S. Justice Department, "most illicit drugs available in the United States and thousands of illegal immigrants are smuggled into the United States across the nearly 2,000-mile Southwest Border."

Nelson warned that a lack of attention to security issues at the border could lead to another 9/11.

"It's also young men in the ages 16 to 26 who are on the terrorist watch list and what is happening is we are facilitating the cartels. We are facilitating the terrorists and we are pointing them towards another 9/11. I hope it doesn't happen. I saw the last one happen," he said.

Under questioning on Wednesday about the cocaine incident, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mostly deferred to the U.S. Secret Service.

"When it comes to visitors to the West Wing, they come for many reasons, and obviously we do have West Wing tours that occur here on campus," Jean-Pierre said. "They happen, and this particular past couple of days, they happened on Friday, they happened on Saturday, and on Sunday."