Party Crashers met Obama

[classicman]

WASHINGTON – The Virginia couple who crashed a presidential dinner met President Barack Obama in the receiving line, the White House said Friday, as a "deeply concerned and embarrassed" Secret Service acknowledged its officers failed to check whether the couple was on the guest list.

The White House released a photo showing the Salahis in the receiving line in the Blue Room with Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in whose honor the dinner was held. Obama and Michaele Salahi are smiling as she grasps his right hand with both of hers as her husband, Tareq, looks on. Singh is standing to the left of Obama.

The Secret Service earlier this week had said the president was not in danger because the couple — like others at the dinner — had gone through magnetometers. But in light of their close proximity to the president, no such claim was made Friday.

The Salahis were not on the guest list and should have been prohibited from entering last Tuesday's dinner on the White House South Lawn for the prime minister of India, said Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan.

On Friday, Sullivan was apologetic in a written statement, saying the agency that protects the president is "deeply concerned and embarrassed" that procedures were not followed.

"As our investigation continues, appropriate measures have been taken to ensure this is not repeated," Sullivan said.

Wow - How the hell does that happen? I bet a few heads are gonna roll for this one.
Link

The couple was swept by security at that point but no longer had to show identification once they were in the White House, a source familiar with the procedure said.

The Virginia socialites then walked by a crew of photographers and reporters about 45 minutes before the dinner started, posed for pictures and then likely went upstairs to the reception. The White House said they were never seated at the dinner.

Criminal charges against the couple, who posted pictures of themselves posing in the tent on the South Lawn with chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, are still a possibility.

"We are not ruling anything out we just need to let the investigation proceed," Mackin said. "We need to verify and make sure we talk to everybody involved."

Mackin stressed that the couple was swept for weapons, yet Ronald Kessler, author of "In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect," said a metal detector search couldn’t offer full protection.

"There are so many ways to kill a person other than coming in with a weapon," Kessler said on CNN. "Once they were in, they could have grabbed a knife and put it through the heart of the president."

Link

[ZenGum]

Well, that makes me feel a bit better about our incompetence at the APEC summit a while back.

[TheMercenary]

If it wasn't such a serious security breech it would be pretty funny. They could have hit Obama with a pie to make it more profound.

[Griff]

This helps make the point that security is mostly illusion.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Griff

This helps make the point that security is mostly illusion.

I don't know. Good security is about a game of chances. I don't think you can ever achieve a zero chance of eliminating danger, but you can get pretty close and should be when talking about the President. It could have turned out tragically if someone had a more nefarious intent.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

Wow - How the hell does that happen? ...

It's a vast right-wing conspiracy, I tell ya!

[skysidhe]

I am just catching up with this today from the net.
Today's headline about this includes other information that this couple had been to other functions, uninvited, where Obama was speaking.

The story raises more questions than answers then and if this fox news story is true then I wonder what that the game is. They act as if they are being set up? I somehow doubt that.

I am prejudiced against Fox and it's affiliates but here is the statement anyway.



WTTG-TV, the Fox affiliate in Washington, reported on a similar incident a month before, in which the Salahis sneaked in through a back entrance to a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Awards dinner at which Obama spoke. A guest complained that the couple didn't belong at his table.
"I double-checked my (guest) list and when they weren't on that list we escorted them out," a foundation representative, Lance Jones, said in an interview early Tuesday.
The Salahis insisted that they had, indeed, been invited to the Black Caucus dinner, saying they'd gotten the invitation from the Gardner Law Group.
The Salahis' lawyer, Paul Gardner, is the managing partner of the Baltimore law firm, which handles corporate and entertainment law. A message left early Tuesday at the law firm was not immediately returned.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_uninvited_guests

[xoxoxoBruce]

The White house needs me, to strip search all the female attendees.
No, boob jobs shouldn't have a fuse.

[glatt]

The Washington Post has been reporting on this every day since the dinner. This couple's hobby is apparently to meet as many famous people as possible. They have wormed their way into meeting a lot of important and famous people. The Post ran a few pictures of previous celebs they have met. I think Prince Charles, Huey Lewis, and one or two others I can't remember.

If you dress the part, and act confident, you can bluff your way through a lot of situations. The Secret Service screwed up, but there was never any real danger. They had to go through security to get in.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by glatt

The Secret Service screwed up, but there was never any real danger. They had to go through security to get in.

From the original post . . .

Ronald Kessler, author of "In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect," said a metal detector search couldn’t offer full protection.

"There are so many ways to kill a person other than coming in with a weapon," Kessler said on CNN. "Once they were in, they could have grabbed a knife and put it through the heart of the president."

[lookout123]

"There are so many ways to kill a person other than coming in with a weapon," Kessler said on CNN. "Once they were in, they could have grabbed a knife and put it through the heart of the president."

he said wistfully.

[ZenGum]

Oh come on, no terrorist would say something like that. They must be okay.

[classicman]

Michaele and Tareq Salahi face a subpoena from the House Homeland Security Committee after skipping Thursday's hearing on how they passed through Secret Service checkpoints to crash President Obama's Nov. 24 state dinner and ended up shaking hands with him.

The Democratic chairman of the panel brushed aside a request from the ranking Republican to issue a subpoena forcing social secretary Desiree Rogers also to testify.
» Click to enlarge image
Lynn Sweet.

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told the House panel that three Secret Service officers who failed to stop the Salahis have been placed on administrative leave with pay.

Throughout the hearing, Sullivan took the blame for the breach, saying the Secret Service -- not Rogers' operation -- was responsible for security. The Salahis were not stopped -- but should have been, Sullivan said -- at the first of two checkpoints when the Secret Service officer on duty could not find their names on the guest list for the dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife.

Instead of following the protocol -- to call a supervisor who would touch base with the social office -- the officer let the Salahis continue, and they sailed past a second checkpoint.

"I mean pure and simple. This is a human error. We could have the best technology, we could have had all the funding that we'd ever want, but this still would not have prevented this from happening," Sullivan told the committee. He said Obama was never in any danger and this was an "isolated incident . . . due to just poor judgment."

The Salahis are the subject of a criminal investigation in an incident that embarrassed the Secret Service. Even though the Secret Service last week said the breach was its fault, the White House on Wednesday issued new guidelines calling for a White House staffer to be with each officer checking people in for parties, to catch party crashers. Sullivan testified that Rogers' office did have personnel roving the area, but his officers made a mistake by not contacting them.

Sullivan was the only witness. Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said he would ask the committee to subpoena the Salahis. The White House blocked Rogers from testifying -- asserting it was a separation-of-powers issue -- but that did not stop several lawmakers from criticizing her for not having more staffers working more closely with the officers. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who invited Rogers to testify, said he wanted the committee to also subpoena her. Thompson rebuffed King's bid as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) argued that Rogers' office was not responsible for security -- the Secret Service was -- and that dragging her in as a witness was "muddying the waters."

I would think this transparent administration would have . . . oh nevermind. This is just another reason I hate politicians.

[ZenGum]

Throughout the hearing, Sullivan took the blame for the breach,

For that, I'd let him keep his job.


ETA: This time.

[classicman]

WASHINGTON (AP) - It wasn't a state dinner, and they didn't crash it on purpose.

Still, a Georgia couple who showed up at the White House a day early for a tour somehow wound up at an invitation-only breakfast with President Barack Obama and the first lady. It left the White House once again explaining how people who were not on an event guest list wound up being ushered into the presidential mansion anyway.

The improbable adventure of Harvey and Paula Darden, Obama supporters from Hogansville, Ga., took place on Veterans Day, two weeks before Virginia socialites Tareq and Michaele Salahi infamously crashed the Obamas' state dinner for the prime minister of India.

The Dardens mistakenly showed up a day early for a tour scheduled through their congressman.

The White House and Secret Service both said the Dardens went through the appropriate security screenings and were allowed into the breakfast as a courtesy because there were no public tours the day they arrived.

That explanation was news to Harvey Darden, 67, a retired pharmacist, who said he and his wife never were told about the breakfast. They thought they were simply starting their tour until they were ushered into the East Room, offered a buffet spread and told they'd be meeting the president.

"The further we got into the White House, the more surprised we were," Darden told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "My wife looked at me and I looked at her, and I said, 'You know, I don't know if we're in the right place.'"

They approached a White House aide with their concern that they had veered off course but were told to "just go with the flow," Darden said.

"I felt kind of funny because I was the only man in the room that wasn't dressed in a coat and tie," he added. "I was just a plain tourist."

Link

They sound like a nice couple.