By IANS,
Washington: The White House has officially closed the case relating to Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the couple who gatecrashed into President Barack Obama’s state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Washington Post reported Monday.
“Case closed. That’s the verdict the White House has emphatically handed down on the embarrassing and troubling security breach a fame-craving Virginia couple performed during the Obama administration’s first state dinner on November 24,” the influential US daily said.
However, eyewitness accounts, a secret service criminal investigation, Congressional hearings and an Obama administration internal review depict a far more complicated set of circumstances, the paper said, noting that the entire episode leaves several questions unanswered for the White House.
The Salahis strolled uninvited into the dinner and shook hands with both the president and Manmohan Singh and had themselves photographed with many celebrity guests before leaving quietly.
It was only when they published their pictures on Facebook the next day that the storm broke out.
The Salahis have been subpoenaed by a Congressional Committee forcing them to appear before it Jan 20 to explain the circumstances in which they entered the White House without an invitation.
“A month later, Tareq and Michaele Salahi’s perplexing White House visit has revealed personnel failings and damage control manoeuvring in the administration, institutional vulnerabilities in the security agency, and the perils of celebrity culture and political gamesmanship in Washington,” The Post wrote.