Security forces at the White House were responsible for the flaw that allowed the Tarq and Michaele Salahi to enter the first state dinner hosted by President Barack Obama without an invitation.
For days, President Obama’s aides hung blame for the embarrassing and potentially dangerous security breach on the Secret Service.
But the White House has now ordered embattled Social Secretary Desiree Rogers to staff all entry gates along with the Secret Service – just as every administration has done as long as anyone can remember.
“We can do more, and we will do more,” deputy chief of staff Jim Messina wrote in a memo.
“After reviewing our actions, it is clear that the White House did not do everything we could have done to assist the United States Secret Service in ensuring that only invited guests enter the complex,” the memo continued.
Separately on Tuesday, copies of emails exchanged between the gatecrashers Tareq Salahi and his wife Michaele and a Pentagon official showed the couple lobbied hard for an invite, but apparently showed up to the event without one.
“It worked out at the end,” Tareq Salahi wrote in an email to Michelle Jones, a Pentagon official who had sought to get the couple an invitation.
“We ended up going to the gate to check in at 6.30 pm to just check, in case it got approved since we didn’t know, and our name was indeed on the list!” the email from Tareq Salahi reads.
The White House has denied that the Salahis were authorized to attend any part of Obama’s first state dinner.
