White House gatecrashers claim they had invite

THE SAGA of Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the White House gate-crashers, continued yesterday when the wannabe socialites made their first national television appearance, on NBC's Today Show.

The couple earlier cancelled an appearance on CNN's Larry King Live, amid rumours they were seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell of how they met President Barack Obama at a state dinner to which they were not invited.

Mrs Salahi denied allegations that the couple, whose Oasis winery is in bankruptcy, were seeking payment. “At no time, Matt, have we ever even talked about doing that with anyone,” she told NBC’s Matt Lauer.

Wearing sombre clothing, the couple portrayed themselves as victims. “This has been the most devastating thing that has ever happened to us,” Mr Salahi said. “We are greatly saddened . . . portraying my wife and I as ‘party crashers’. We can tell you we did not crash the White House.”

Mrs Salahi described her own torment: "Our lives have been destroyed," said the woman who aspires to appear in Bravo TV's upcoming reality series Real Housewives of DC."Everything we worked for – me, 44 years, just destroyed."

Mrs Salahi had claimed to be a former cheerleader for the Washington Redskins, but the football team says it has no record of her.

Mr Salahi’s brother Ismail told NBC that Michaele and Tareq “are really into the whole ‘media thing’. They love the attention . . . There are a lot of things they . . . I don’t know that I would consider moral or ethical.”

The Washington Post'sTV blog reported that the couple arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown, where the interview was broadcast, at 5.30am so that Mrs Salahi could spend 2¼ hours having her hair and make-up done.

On Monday night, WTTG-Fox 5 revealed that the couple also crashed the Congressional Black Caucus Dinner two months ago, but were thrown out. That dinner was also attended by Mr and Mrs Obama. Mr Salahi called the Fox story “another false accusation against my wife and I . . . another gossip rumour”.

The Salahis will testify before the House homeland security committee, along with the head of the secret service and the White House social secretary, tomorrow. They told NBC they have proof they were invited to the White House, but said they can’t show it until they are cleared by the secret service.

The Salahis exchanged e-mails about the dinner with Michele Jones, who is in charge of Pentagon liaison with the White House.

Ms Jones says she “specifically stated that they did not have tickets and in fact that I did not have the authority to authorise attendance”.