Exclusive | White House nixed visit with freed Venezuela detainee Joseph St. Clair over outstanding arrest warrants for drug possession, DWI

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service rejected a request to bring an American detainee freed from Venezuelan custody to the White House last week — because they would have had to arrest him on the spot due to outstanding warrants, The Post has learned.Joseph St.

Clair, 32, an Afghanistan war veteran who had been held in the South American country since this past November, has a record in his home state of Texas, the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Tuesday.St.Clair, of Austin, was arrested in June 2023 on three counts of drug possession, resisting arrest, and driving while intoxicated.

A little more than a year later, in July 2024, St.Clair was booked again on a DWI charge.A report from the Waxahachie Police Department on the June 2023 incident claimed that arresting officers pulled St.

Clair over after he was driving erratically on Interstate 35 and reported a white powdery substance on his nose.A search of St.

Clair’s truck revealed “at least a dozen” baggies of ketamine or ketamine residue — some of which he admitted to snorting before he left his house — and two vials of anabolic steroids.The arresting officers noted that St.Clair had also been picked up on a DWI rap in April 2023, a case which was pending at the time of his apprehension.The request to bring St.

Clair to the White House was put in by special envoy Ric Grenell, who flew to the Caribbean island of Antigua on a private jet to pick up the freed American May 20, as The Post reported Friday.Upon his return to Washington, Grenell asked Trump if he could bring St.Clair by the executive mansion for a celebration, as has been done with other freed US detainees.The request was initially approved, but was then shut down after the Secret Service learned of St.

Clair’s criminal history, according to multiple sources.“He [Grenell] was told no by Secret Service who alerted for White House staff that if this individual were to (come) to the White House, he would be arrested at the gat...