White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the investigation into the state dinner party crashers was focusing exclusively on the Secret Service, not administration staffers.
Reporters pressed Gibbs on whether the White House social office was also being investigated since the checks at large events were part of protocol in previous administrations.
“My understanding is Secret Service will look at what the Secret Service did,” Gibbs said. “The Secret Service, through the director, has admitted that somebody who wasn’t on a list and wasn’t waived in was allowed into an event that clearly he said shouldn’t be.”
Several reporters kept pushing, asking whether the social office should have been on hand double checking attendees.
“In absence of somebody being there, because there are working telephones in the White House, somebody would have checked,” Gibbs said. “That couple got into the White House and that is what the Secret Service is rightly focused on.”
Gibbs said “no call or reach out ever came to anybody in terms of staff from Secret Service.”
Gibbs said Obama hasn’t talked about the breach, but added: “The president shares the concern the director had.”
Late Update: Ken Bazinet from the New York Daily News has top brass on the record saying the social office deserves no blame and it’s all the Secret Service’s fault: “They screwed up. There’s nowhere else to go with this.”
Also, here’s the video of the Gibbs exchange from this afternoon.
