Did Third White House State Dinner Crasher Know the Salahis?

The third crasher of the White House's state dinner for the Prime Minister of India in November may be connected to reality television show aspirants Tareq and Michaele Salahi who are the subjects of a criminal probe into how they wrangled their way into the party.

Law enforcement officials are not confirming the name of the third intruder, but the Washington Post, citing a congressional source, said the alleged intruder was Carlos Allen, 39, a Washington, D.C. party promoter. The Post --whose reporters broke the original story about the Salahis not being on the guest list -- said it has asked Allen about the dinner last month after he told a blogger he had attended, but he denied knowledge about anything regarding the dinner.

Allen told the Politico "I did not attend the state dinner," repeating it three times. Politico also quoted an Allen acquaintance saying he told her he was there.

The Post reported that the third crasher, like the Salahis, left the White House after the reception but before the seated dinner, where each seat was reserved for a particular guest. Allen, if he is infact the intruder, may technically be right -- he was not at the dinner, held in a temporary pavilion on the South Lawn -- but could have been, as were the Salahis, at the pre-dinner reception in the White House.

Update: Politico posted tape of a man who looks like Allen entering the White House for the party. The video was shot by the broadcast pool camera. Politico interviewed Allen's attorney, A. Scott Bolden, who said Allen was at the dinner, and that he "received an invitation."

"He doesn't deny being at the dinner," Bolden told Politico. "He has been cooperating with the Secret Service and their investigation. He has been interviewed and has been forthright and truthful with them." end update.

Talking Points Memo found a photo of a woman who looked like Michaele Salahi arm in arm with Allen, CEO of a company called The Hush Group, Inc. on the website of his firm. Marcus Dijon, the photographer, told Politics Daily he believed the photo was of Salahi but needed to consult his records to be 100 percent sure. Dijon said the photo was taken in late August at a party in Washington that was a social networking event after a Beyonce appearance.

The Secret Service admitted on Monday that there was a third crasher, issuing a statement only after Ronald Kessler at Newsmax.com broke the story that the agency had discovered another person not on the guest list as part of their internal probe of the incident.

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told the House Homeland Security Committee on Dec. 2 that he was not aware of any crashers other than the Salahis. The Salahis have been subpoenaed to appear before the panel on Jan. 20.

While in the Salahi case, fingers were pointed at the Secret Service and White House social office for the lapse, the State Department finds itself sharing the responsibility in this case.

Here's what happened, according to the Secret Service statement and Politics Daily interviews with officials familiar with the investigation:

The night of the dinner, the State Department assembled a group of Indian CEO's at the Willard Hotel, a few blocks from the White House. The State Department was responsible for the group. The interloper, said to be a U.S. citizen, hooked up with the Indian delegation at the hotel.

"This individual went through all required security measures along with the rest of the official delegation at the hotel, and boarded a bus/van with the delegation guests en route to the White House," the Secret Service said in the statement. While the others in the delegation were on the White House "WAVES" system --meaning their names were cleared and they were on a computer database -- Allen was not.

"At present, there is nothing to indicate that this individual went through the receiving line of had contact with the President or First Lady," the Secret Service statement said.

Even though the State Department and Secret Service did not block the third crasher -- and those outfits took responsibility for their failure to detect the crasher -- the incident caused another headache for White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers. Rogers was heavily criticized for not posting more staff at the East Wing to detect party crashers and for not testifying before the House committee, an appearance the White House blocked on the grounds of separation of powers.

Sally Quinn, writing in the Washington Post on Tuesday, in a column headlined "Time for accountability at the White House," called for the resignation of Rogers and Sullivan, the Secret Service director. Wrote Quinn, a long-time observer of social and political Washington, "one of the first lessons any administration needs to learn is that somebody has to take the hit for whatever goes wrong. If another culprit is not identified, the president gets the blame."