In their first public remarks since last week's gala for the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, Tareq and Michaele Salahi told NBC television's Today show that they have documents proving they were authorised to attend.
They said they will make the documents public once the US secret service has completed its investigation into the incident. The Salahis said they had not been paid for the interview, responding to rumours they had sought a fee to tell their side of the story in the media.
White House state dinners are the top event of the Washington social calendar. More than guests, including Cabinet members, diplomats and Hollywood celebrities, attended the dinner. If they lied to federal agents in order to get into the White House dinner, that is a federal crime, said Fran Townsend , CNN national security contributor. The agents tasked with protecting the president "did not follow proper procedures," Secret Service agent Edwin Donovan said in a statement, but said the gatecrashers went through metal detectors "and other levels of security.
In a statement Thursday, Bravo said, "Michaele Salahi is under consideration as a cast member, as such [series producer] Half Yard Productions were filming the Salahis on that day.
Half Yard was only aware that per the Salahis they had been invited [to the state dinner] as guests. The couple also appears to have posted pictures on Facebook purportedly showing them gaining access to high profile events during inauguration week, according to The Washington Post's Reliable Sources gossip column.
Pictures on the couple's joint Facebook account appear to show them in the first family's glass-enclosed viewing area after a concert at the Lincoln Memorial, according to the Post. Other pictures purportedly show them mingling with celebrities during inauguration weekend, including talk show host Oprah Winfrey at the Kennedy Center, according to the Post.
Share this on:. More Politics. Most Popular. The Secret Service hasn't pressed any party-crashing charges, but Ed Rollins, a former strategist for President Ronald Reagan, is calling for the prosecution of uninvited White House guests Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who crashed President Barack Obama's first state dinner, last week.
But prosecution hasn't been the fate of recent sophisticated intruders in the royal sphere. The state-dinner stunt is very reminiscent of an incident at Queen Beatrix's royal palace in the Netherlands only last October, when two Dutch reporters exposed security flaws by driving into the compound with a fake bomb.
Reportedly the reporters said they were workers with a renovation company and entered the palace after showing their passports to police, who allegedly did not search the duo's vehicle.
The White House says flatly the couple was not invited. But Paul Gardner, the Salahi's attorney, has suggested this was a misunderstanding. Over the weekend, the Secret Service took full responsibility for the Salahis' breach, saying in a statement by director Mark Sullivan that the agency is "deeply concerned and embarrassed" by the apparent breakdown in security.
The Secret Service interviewed the couple over the weekend and sometime this week will work with prosecutors to decide if they should be charged. Among the charges that may be considered are trespassing and lying to a federal officer.
Any decision will likely rely on what was said by the couple to secret service officials. Did they lie, mislead--or just grin and walk?
It could have been very easy to make a phone call or get on a radio and verify if someone was on a list. This is still our responsibility as we've said from the beginning," Donovan said. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
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