Secret Service Refuses to Hand Over ‘Known Pool of Individuals’ List in White House Cocaine Incident

The Secret Service has refused to turn over the list of individuals who may have accessed the area of the White House

where authorities discovered cocaine over the Fourth of July weekend, saying that the record of such a list does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act. This suggests that the Secret Service never created such a list in the first place.

“As your request seeks records reflecting visitors or related information concerning the Office of the President, please be advised that these records are not Secret Service agency records subject to the FOIA,” Kevin Tyrrell, a Freedom of Information Act officer at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Signal. “Rather, these records are governed by the Presidential Records Act, and remain under the exclusive legal custody and control of the White House.”

“One of the things you have to do when you go through the security checkpoints—and keep in mind, every staff member, every visitor, has to go through a background investigation to get into the White House—they not only check you for weapons,” von Spakovsky said. Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

“You have to go through an area where they blow air through you and they have dogs sniffing, to try to detect any kind of illegal substances, bombs, or anything else. And yet they missed someone bringing cocaine into the White House? That is hard to excuse,” he said.

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