Somebody needs to answer for this. A couple from Virginia crashed a White House state dinner. Yes, that’s the couple above with Vice President Joe Biden. The Secret Service first learned of the security breach when the couple posted pictures from the event on their Facebook page.
Apparently they just walked into the White House.
This much is known: About 7:15 Tuesday night, a glittering blonde, decked out in a red and gold sari, holding the hand of her black-tuxedoed escort, swept past the camera crews and reporters camped out to catch the red-carpet arrivals for the first state dinner given by President Obama.
“Hey, that’s a Desperate Housewife!” one reporter yelled out, alluding to the TV series named for a collection of them.
In fact, the couple — Michaele Salahi and her husband, Tareq — are Virginians who have been auditioning for a possible role in a different housewives TV franchise: “The Real Housewives of Washington.”
They swept past the camera crews and followed the trail of other bigwigs attending the dinner.
But neither Mr. nor Mrs. Salahi, best known in the Washington area for promoting wine and polo in Virginia, were on the guest list for the event, a fact first reported Wednesday morning on the Washington Post Web site.
A White House official confirmed Wednesday that the Salahis had not been invited nor seated for dinner.
The couple “went through magnetometers and other levels of security,” according to a Secret Service spokesman. The fact remains, however, that these two enjoyed unprecedented access to the President of the United States, even if they did not meet him directly.
What an incredible and apparently unprecedented security lapse.
The investigation continues.