Uninvited guests shook hands with Obama

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Getting to the president is not supposed to be this easy.

The White House said late Friday that Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the Virginia couple auditioning for a Bravo reality show, not only got past layers of experienced, executive-branch security but also shook the president’s hand in the Blue Room of the White House during the Obamas’ first state dinner. Late Friday, the White House also released a photo of Michaele Salahi’s audience with the president, with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh smiling nearby.

The security breach has caused finger-pointing inside the White House, bewilderment among Tuesday night’s guests — and late on Friday, prompted an apology from the Secret Service.

A statement by Director Mark Sullivan said the agency was “deeply concerned and embarrassed by the circumstances surrounding the State Dinner” and added that “the preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list.”

Sullivan suggested that the couple had been screened for weapons, but should not have gained entry. “That failing is ours,” he said.

Agents from the Secret Service — which, according to spokesman James Mackin, has “not ruled out” criminal charges against the couple — had sought to interview them at the Salahi family winery in Hume, Va., earlier Friday. The couple wasn’t there, and the investigators sought them out at another address in Linden, Va.

Reached by telephone Friday evening, the couple’s attorney, Paul Gardner, declined to comment, saying only, “Ha-ha-ha, no thank you.” In an e-mail to Bloomberg News, Gardner added, “My clients were cleared by the White House to be there.”

According to Mackin, the security failure occurred at the initial checkpoint, where guests present their names to an agent. He said the Salahis should have been turned away when their names did not show up on the guest list, but instead agents waved them on to the next checkpoint.

“We know at this point that the failing was at that first one,” Mackin said in an interview late Friday.