This post originally appeared at https://wisconsindailystar.com/news/wisconsin-u-s-senator-sees-connection-in-americas-fentanyl-crisis-and-white-house-cocaine-problem/mdkittle/2023/07/19/

Some Republicans have of late quipped, Is it any wonder the United States is facing a deadly fentanyl epidemic when the Biden administration can’t even keep cocaine out of the White House?

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) certainly isn’t surprised.

“Let’s face it, the fentanyl crisis is enormous, and it’s not helped by the fact that we have completely open borders,” Johnson told The Star News Network this week on the Simon Conway Show (WHO Radio in Des Moines). “The Biden immigration policy is literally facilitating the multi-billion dollar business model of some of the most evil people on the planet: the drug traffickers, the human traffickers, the sex traffickers.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a record 109,680 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. last year — fentanyl accounted for many of those fatalities. Last year, the medical journal The Lancet released a report predicting opioid-fentanyl drug deaths will remain high, claiming another 1.2 million lives in the U.S. by the end of this decade, National Public Radio reported.

The flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs pouring through a porous southwest border rests on the shoulders of President Joe Biden and his administration’s immigration policies, Johnson said.

And now the White House has its own drug problem.

Biden’s team has mostly shrugged off the cocaine package discovered in the People’s House and first widely reported on July 4. The Secret Service conducted a quick investigation — without interviewing anyone — and concluded the owner of the nose candy may never be known.

The discovery and the subsequent internal investigation have led critics to cry “cover-up.” Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who served as former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, said last week in Iowa that it’s hard to believe investigators couldn’t track down the cocaine culprits.

“I strongly believe this is a cover-up for either Hunter [Biden] or someone very close to the president, and they don’t want to say who it is,” she said. The president’s troubled son, Hunter, has had a history of cocaine addiction and related legal problems.

Johnson agrees with Haley, although he said it’s hard to determine precisely where the cocaine was found because Biden administration officials keep changing their story.

“It certainly should not be difficult to find the perpetrator,” the senator said. “I do know that for the premier investigative agency in the world, the FBI, this ought to be child’s play.” The senator is a vocal critic of the controversial law enforcement agency.

Johnson noted that individuals seeking entry to the White House must first go through a highly secure Secret Service building. Many people entering get the pat-down treatment from White House security members.

“So you’ve got to have really larges stones and not be concerned about [carrying cocaine], or you’re so well known to the Secret Service that you know that they’re not going to pat you down and find cocaine on you,” the senator said.

Despite the White House and mainstream media’s best efforts, the cocaine story isn’t going away.

As the Washington Examiner reported on Tuesday, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is pressing for more information, as are House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

“This is like if Hamburglar lived in the White House, all the hamburgers disappeared, and they said they didn’t have any suspects or no one they could question,” Cotton quipped.

Listen to the entire interview with Johnson here.