CALLAHAN: The White House can find Bin Laden in Pakistan but not a cocaine culprit under its nose

Make no mistake: The Biden administration is laughing at us.

We are meant to believe that the United States Secret Service, tasked with protecting the very life of the president, cannot crack the case of who left cocaine in a secure, hard-to-access part of the White House — despite facial recognition cameras, guest-book logs and security all over the most protected building in the Western world.

The cover-up, as the Nixon-era saying goes, is always worse than the crime.

At least this feels like yet another blatant White House whitewash.

Here, in part, is the statement released by the Secret Service on Thursday. See if you can read this with a straight face.

‘The investigation included a methodical review of security systems and protocols,’ it says, noting that the baggie — which was initially tested for anthrax, its reported location changing three times over one week — was found in a receptacle used to store personal devices before entering the West Wing.

But wouldn’t you know, according to the Secret Service, there are no security cameras in the hallway that leads to the West Wing, to the Oval Office, to the hub of the most powerful person on Earth.

Nope, folks, nothing to see here. Literally.

According to the Secret Service, there are no security cameras in the hallway that leads to the West Wing, to the Oval Office, to the hub of the most powerful person on Earth. Nope, folks, nothing to see here. Literally. (Pictured: President Biden).

‘There was no surveillance video footage found that provided investigative leads or any other means for investigators to identify who may have deposited the found substance in this area,’ the statement claimed.

Wow — that’s some thicket of words. Almost feels like they’re trying to overcompensate, does it not?

‘Without physical evidence,’ the statement continued, ‘the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest… the Secret Service’s investigation is closed.’

So let’s get this straight: The United States was able to find Osama bin Laden hiding out in a secure walled-off compound in Pakistan, but the Secret Service can’t crack this conundrum, quite literally under their noses?

If taken at face value, what does that say about the competence of this White House? Of Joe Biden?

If the president’s security is that porous, that lax, shouldn’t he be demanding answers? Shouldn’t the media?

What if the next baggie contains ricin? Shouldn’t Biden be calling for heads to roll?

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that veteran FBI agent Mark Morgan, former Border Commissioner under Donald Trump, says this inquiry should have been a snap.

‘An investigation like this is pretty straightforward,’ Morgan told DailyMail.com last week. ‘Everybody that enters the White House is manifested. They know who comes in, they know where they came in, they’re checked, and there are video cameras everywhere.’

Of course. Common sense dictates as much. But Biden continues to take us all for idiots.

This closed case smells ever more rank given his son Hunter’s recent slaps on the wrist. Charged with felony gun possession and failure to pay his taxes on income of $1.5 million annually in 2017 and 2018, Hunter walked.

The gun charge alone carried a maximum sentence of ten years in prison, partly because Hunter was an active drug addict at the time.

This is to say nothing of the years he has spent selling access to his father.

Democrats and progressives especially, ask yourselves: Would a poor person of color, with decades of drug abuse in their history, get such a colossal break? Such a spongy, spring-in-your-step cakewalk? An invitation, days later, to a White House State Dinner?

This latest scandal may not seem much of a threat — a dime bag, a stalled investigation, a refusal to address the White House press corps on this — but it’s very real.

The contempt this displays to the electorate is outrageous. This administration is now thoroughly emblematic of the ‘rules-for-thee, not-for-me’ arrogance that gave rise to a populist like Trump.

But it’s easy to see why the Biden administration is so emboldened.

Much of the mainstream media remains in lockstep, parroting everything Biden would like us to believe: He’s fully compos mentis. The border is secure. Kamala Harris is doing a ‘great job’. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan was a complete success. Title IX shouldn’t be just for women and women are totally fine with that.

And if they’re not, they should be, because no president has ever been more in favor of diversity, equity and inclusion. In fact, these should be among the top criteria for hiring at NASA and the United States military.

There’s more, per Biden: The economy’s doing great, even as average Americans struggle to fill their tanks. As 401(k)s lost around 23 per cent in 2022. As the country is further divided by woke-ism, virtue-signaling and orthodoxy of thought.

And believe him when he says that no one understands the importance of family more.

Lest we forget Biden quoting his father, in a 2015 commencement speech at Yale, that family is ‘the beginning, the middle and the end’. Yet this is the same man who cruelly ignores the 4-year-old child Hunter fathered with a former stripper.

Here was MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski on Wednesday, offering Biden advice: Not to step aside for the good of the country, not to replace his disastrous VP if he’s hellbent on running, not to keep Hunter in line and out of sight.

No, she thinks our President needs better staff to hide his obvious deficits — like wandering off during a TV interview or shaking hands with no one or inexplicably ending a speech about gun control with ‘God save the Queen, man’ or falling up the stairs of Air Force One, more than once.

The contempt this displays to the electorate is outrageous. This administration is now thoroughly emblematic of the ‘rules-for-thee, not-for-me’ arrogance that gave rise to a populist like Trump.

‘I’m just saying if you are managing a president’s schedule, and you are managing a president getting on stage and getting off stage, and getting on planes and getting off planes — and yes, he’s 80 — you need to be there for him,’ Brzezinski said.

‘And you need to make a pathway and you sure as hell better make sure he doesn’t fall on a sandbag. And I blame the staff for that.’

This is exactly part of the problem. Instead of the media asking if an obviously frail 80-year-old man is up to the job right now – let alone a second term – they’re blame-shifting and excusing.

That’s why this cocaine scandal galls. The media isn’t going to push back or demand answers because they want Biden re-elected.

This is the kind of propaganda people rightly recoil from. It’s setting the stage for another Trump presidency.

Consider the response of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre last Friday, when asked if the cocaine belonged to someone in the Biden family.

‘You know, there has been some irresponsible reporting about the family,’ she huffed, while also claiming she had ‘exhaustively’ addressed the matter. Could’ve fooled us.

In the absence of any findings whatsoever from the Secret Service and the White House ignoring this breach, one obvious question looms: What about the First Son, former hardcore, long-term drug addict Hunter Biden?

Yes, Hunter and Joe left the White House on Friday. The coke wasn’t found until Sunday. But that doesn’t prove or disprove anything.

After all, we’re told there’s no way to know who left it behind and when.

The White House may feel they’ve skirted a scandal, but the cost may be higher than they think.

People aren’t stupid. Keep treating us that way, Mr. President, and you might be shocked at the ballot box next November.

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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk