Obamas”™ Uninvited Guests Prompt an Inquiry
by Helene Cooper and Brian Stelter
The New York Times
November 26, 2009
Washington “” The Secret Service is investigating how a couple aspiring to be reality-show celebrities managed to appear at President Obama”™s first state dinner without being on the guest list, provoking questions about security at the White House.
The inquiry was begun after a Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, slipped past multiple layers of high-level White House security Tuesday night and managed to rub shoulders, literally, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, among others, at Washington”™s most exclusive social event this year.
Edwin M. Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service who spent his Thanksgiving Day dealing with phone calls from reporters, would not discuss the investigation in detail but said the initial focus was on “a Secret Service checkpoint which did not follow proper procedure to ensure these two individuals were on the invited guest list.” Continue reading “More Desperate Reality TV Wannabes: Salahis Crash White House Party”