It’s the greatest White House fiasco since the sale of the Lincoln Bedroom.
A pair of social-climbing, reality show wannabes got into the White House state dinner Tuesday night — without an invitation — and giddily rubbed elbows with Vice President Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel and a host of other high-level politicians and the media elite.
“The Real Housewives of Washington” hopefuls Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who’ve gotten a reputation for a bitter family feud involving a winery in the posh horse-country of Northern Virginia, showed up at the state dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Secret Service acknowledged last night.
“Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!” the couple crowed on their joint Facebook page Tuesday at 9:08 p.m..
The Salahis were introduced right after Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and right before CBS News anchor Katie Couric.
In other photos, they appear alone or together with White House chief of staff Emanuel, Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, Couric, Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and three Marines in their dress blues.
The White House has asked the Secret Service for a full review, an official told The Post last night.
President Obama was never in any danger because the party crashers went through the same security screening for weapons as the 300-plus people actually invited to the dinner, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan insisted.
The agency said it learned about the incredible security breach after a flood of inquiries following the Salahis’ online boasts, first reported by the Washington Post.
“We’ve tasked our Office of Professional Responsibility with conducting a complete review of the incident that occurred…at the state dinner,” Donovan said.
But in an initial finding, Donovan said, the agency found that a Secret Service “checkpoint…did not follow proper procedures to ensure that those two individuals…were on the invited guest list.”
Donovan insisted they didn’t just skate through.
“They were not on the guest list,” he said, but added: “They went through the magnetometer, they went through the other levels of security that all the guests did.”
Donovan declined to get specific about the hows and whys of the embarrassing slip-up.
He said he didn’t know if the party dupers ever met Obama and First Lady Michele Obama.
And he refused to answer if the couple simply lied about their guest-list status, calling the query “something I’m not gonna talk about.”
He also wouldn’t say just how many Secret Service officers the pair managed to get past.
“I just don’t want to get into that,” he said.
“We don’t rely on just magnetometers or the level of screenings,” he added. “That’s why we have the agents with our protectees at all times.
The Washington Post reported uninvited guests who got into the state dinner could face a potential trespassing charge unless someone from inside the White House staff sneaked them in.
Facebook photos suggest the Salahis walked into the dinner tent on the South Lawn, but it isn’t clear when they left.
Reporters were cleared from the entryway by the time dinner seating got under way. There is no security checkpoint to leave the grounds.
The Salahis are longtime fixtures in Northern Virginia’s society, and Tareq Salahi is captain of the US polo team.
Michaele, a striking model-thin blonde from Los Angeles, who used to be a Redskins cheerleader, has been widely reported to be in contention as one of the “Real Housewives” in the forthcoming DC edition of the hit Bravo cable series.
The breach kicked up the biggest furor at the White House since President Clinton allowed Democratic donors to spend the night in the Lincoln Bedroom for a contribution of $150,000.
But White House crashing is hardly new.
Drunken crowds busted up the White House furniture to celebrate Andrew Jackson’s inauguration in 1828, and since then, uninvited guests have been fairly steady intruders at the White House and its 13 acres of lawns and gardens.
On New Year’s Eve in 1983, a woman clad in a formal gown attempted to crash a Palm Springs, Calif., party that was attended by President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy. The woman tried to claim she was the wife of Interior Secretary William Clark, but the host, millionaire publisher Walter Annenberg, realized there was something fishy about the “guest” — and escorted her out.
A tourist from Denver was able to wander freely around the White House on the day of Reagan’s second inaugural in January 1985. He entered the executive mansion with the Marine Corps band, but ushers became suspicious because he wasn’t in uniform or carrying an instrument. Reagan was attending a prayer service at the time.
In 1995, an armed intruder jumped a fence onto the South Lawn before being shot and wounded by a Secret Service agent.
With Post Wire Services