I guess not only the Salahis crashed the White House State Dinner. Secret Service let in a 3rd “crasher”

obamafacepalmRemember, this is the administration that is going to protect America from jihadists. The administration that claimed days after Christmas that “the system worked” when a Nigerian crotch bomber nearly blew up a plane over Detroit and killed 300 Americans. Yes, this is the same administration that has been forced to admit that the Salahis weren’t the only White House State Dinner “crashers”, but infact there was a 3rd person! According to NewsMax, at the last minute, someone from the Indian diplomatic delegation invited a man to attend the White House event on Nov. 24 without the knowledge or consent of the White House.

As with the Salahis, the Secret Service ignored the fact that the man was not on the guest list and failed to conduct a background check on him.

This new example of Secret Service laxness came to light when the agency was investigating why Secret Service Uniformed Division officers let the Salahis into the state dinner.

At a hearing on Dec. 3 by the House Homeland Security Committee, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., asked Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan whether any other “interlopers” might have been allowed into the event by the Secret Service.

“Ma’am, that was a concern of mine, as well,” Sullivan replied. “That is something we have focused on; I cannot talk about it in this setting, but I believe that I can satisfy you in explaining that there were no other people there that night that should not [have been let in].”

Subsequently, the Secret Service examined surveillance video of arriving guests and attempted to match the images with the guest list. The agency spotted an African-American man wearing a tuxedo who had not been invited. He appeared to be with members of the Indian delegation.

Checking further, agents found that a State Department official had picked him up, along with others from the Indian delegation, at the Willard InterContinental Hotel and had driven him from the hotel to the White House.

The man turned out not to pose a threat, but because the Secret Service failed to perform a background check, the agency never would have known if he was, for example, wanted for murder or involved with terrorist groups. Ironically, in the movie “In the Line of Fire,” an assassin was able to gain access to the president in similar fashion.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan initially did not respond to a request from Newsmax for comment. After the Newsmax story ran, the Secret Service issued a statement confirming that “a third individual, who was not on the White House guest list, entered the state dinner.”

The statement added, “It appears at this point that the subject traveled from a local hotel, where the official Indian delegation was staying, and arrived at the dinner with the group, which was under the responsibility of the Department of State. This individual went through all required security measures along with the rest of the official delegation at the hotel and boarded a bus/van with the delegation guests en route to the White House.

At present, there is nothing to indicate that this individual went through the receiving line or had contact with the president or first lady. Unlike the rest of the members of the official delegation, this individual was not entered into the WAVES system [for a background check].”

The reference to the individual going through unspecified required security procedures at the hotel appears to mean that the Indian delegation vouched for him. As the Secret Service statement said, the man was neither invited by the White House nor given a background check through the WAVES system. Nor did the State Department official know him.

The fact that someone in the Indian delegation vouched for the man did not mean he was not an assassin. Under Secret Service procedures, even if the White House chief of staff invies his parents to the the White House, they still must submit to a background check.

Until the Newsmax story ran, mortified Secret Service officials had failed to notify the House committee investigating the Salahi security breach of this latest embarrassment to the agency.

As outlined in my book “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect,” the Secret Service routinely misleads members of Congress by presenting as spontaneous threat scenarios that were in fact secret rehearsed and by citing in congressional hearings arrest statistics that are padded with arrests made by local law enforcement.

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January 4, 2010 · Filed Under General Politics


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