FBI announces new probes into Dobbs Supreme Court leak, White House cocaine incident

By Raphael Satter

The FBI will launch new probes into the 2023 discovery of cocaine at the White House during President Joe Biden's term and the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court's draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a top official announced on Monday.

Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster-turned-FBI deputy director, made the announcement on X, saying that he had requested weekly briefings on the cases' progress.

Both incidents have been popular talking points on America's right.

The discovery of a small bag of cocaine in a cubby near the entrance to the West Wing two years ago drew excited commentary from Republicans, including Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential candidate, who said it was implausible that the drugs could belong to anyone beyond Biden and his son Hunter - even though the Biden family was away from Washington at the time.

A White House spokesperson at the time said that the allegations were "incredibly irresponsible." A spokeswoman for Biden declined to comment on Monday about the new probe.

The May 2, 2022, publication of the Supreme Court's draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which ended the constitutional right to abortion, provoked condemnation from Trump, who called the source of the leak "slime" and demanded that the journalists involved be imprisoned until they revealed who it was.

Previous investigations into both cases, by the Secret Service and the Supreme Court, respectively, ended without identifying who was responsible for the cocaine or the leak.

The Supreme Court and the Secret Service didn't immediately return messages seeking comment on Monday.

Bongino has previously alleged, without presenting any evidence, that he was in touch with whistleblowers who told him they were "suspicious" that evidence from the White House cocaine bag "could match a member of the inner Biden circle."

Bongino also announced more resources for the FBI's investigation into the placement of pipe bombs at the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee in Washington in January 2021.

The bombs, which were later defused, had been planted the night before Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

The perpetrator has never been publicly identified.