Reporting from Washington — President Obama met face to face with the Virginia couple who crashed this week's state dinner at the White House, officials acknowledged Friday, as the Secret Service said that it was "deeply concerned and embarrassed" by the breach of security.
A Secret Service spokesman also confirmed that the agency was conducting a two-pronged inquiry into whether the couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, broke criminal laws, and how the president's bodyguards came to let them inside what was supposed to be one of the world's most carefully secured buildings.
In a picture released by the White House on Friday, Michaele Salahi is shown clasping Obama's hand as he greets guests Tuesday in the receiving line in the Blue Room. Both are smiling. Her husband is shown looking on.
Pictures posted on Michaele Salahi’s Facebook page showed the couple standing next to a smiling Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
At no point during the party was the breach discovered; when they left, it was on their own, officials said.
In a statement Friday afternoon, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan said: "The Secret Service is deeply concerned and embarrassed by the circumstances surrounding the state dinner."
He added that the couple "should have been prohibited from entering the event entirely. That failing is ours."
The acknowledgment that the pair had gained access to the president is likely to inspire more calls for formal reviews of the incident. Even before Friday's admission, Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) called for a congressional hearing on the matter.
Although the couple went through a metal detector, that is not sufficient to protect the president and White House officials, King said. A determined terrorist could have smuggled in biological weapons or grabbed knives and forks to inflict harm, he said.
"If these had been terrorists or psychopaths who had anthrax or training in the martial arts, and who were arm in arm with the vice president and Cabinet officials, they could in a matter of seconds have killed someone," King said.
The Secret Service typically does not detail its methods. But in his statement, Sullivan did say that the magnetometer, which detects weapons, was one of multiple levels of screening.
King, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said that he had asked the Secret Service to give a classified briefing next week.
