Powder that prompted brief evacuation at White House found to be cocaine

A preliminary field test of a suspicious white powder found at the White House late Sunday came back positive for cocaine.

The discovery of the powder in a “work area” caused a brief evacuation of the White House Sunday night followed by a visit from the Washington fire department, the Secret Service said.

“On Sunday evening, the White House complex went into a precautionary closure as officers from the Secret Service Uniformed Division investigated an unknown item found inside a work area,” Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the United States Secret Service, said in an email to The Hill.  

“The DC Fire Department was called to evaluate and quickly determined the item to be non-hazardous. The item was sent for further evaluation and an investigation into the cause and manner of how it entered the White House is pending.” 

In a radio dispatch shared online, a D.C. firefighter can be heard saying, “We have a yellow bar staying cocaine hydrochloride.” The short broadcast, timestamped 8:49 p.m. July 2, was posted on a website called openmhz.com that allows people to listen to both live and archived radio dispatches from fire and police departments.

An official familiar with the investigation confirmed to The Washington Post that the dispatch came from the White House Sunday night.  

President Biden was not in the White House Sunday night, having left for Camp David Friday.