Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform emerged from a closed-door briefing on the White House party crashers this afternoon placing blame for the security breach squarely on the shoulders of a single, unnamed Secret Service officer.
“It’s very clear that there was one person who allowed these two individuals to go from Station 1 to Station 2,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking member on the committee, told reporters. “One person’s error appears to have led to a person having literally hand-to-hand contact with the Vice President.”
Committee chair Edolphus Towns (D-NY) didn’t confirm Issa’s take on the closed-door briefing with Secret Service officials, but expressed his confidence that an internal investigation into the party crashing by the Secret Service will find a solution to the problem.
“[The Secret Service] said that it was a mistake and there’s an on-going investigation where they’re continuing to look into it,” he said. “And we’re convinced that they are.”
Towns said his committee will be following the investigation closely. “We’ll be talking with them [the Secret Service] further,” he said.
Issa’s understanding of the briefing would confirm previous accounts of how the now-infamous Salahis made it into a White House state dinner uninvited. Those accounts say that a uniformed Secret Service agent at the pedestrian entrance to the White House waved the couple through, assuming that their claims of being invited guests would be confirmed by a later security station. For their part, the Salahis have continued to insist that they did not knowingly crash the party, and believed they were on the list when they entered the White House grounds.
Issa also related his own story of crashing a party at the White House.
Towns was asked about recent press reports that the Salahis crashed a Congressional Black Caucus event in September. Accounts say the couple was escorted out of the party by security after being discovered sneaking in.
“Let’s put it this way — there was an attempt,” Towns said, laughing.
Issa, Towns and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who also met with reporters after the briefing, all agreed it was too early to cast blame for the gate crashing beyond the Secret Service, which has taken full responsibility for the security breach. But they said that the final results of the Secret Service internal probe could turn the attention of Congressional investigators back to the White House.
Late Update: In a statement released from his office after he spoke with reporters, Issa responsed to the White House’s internal review of the matter, which Christina reported on earlier.
From the statement:
“It’s encouraging that the White House is acknowledging that parts of the process were flawed and that they can be active participants in ensuring a breach like this never happens again by returning to practices that were utilized by previous Administrations. It’s imperative that all the parties involved work diligently and cooperatively to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
