Washington:
As part of a broadening inquiry into presidential security, SecretService agents on Friday began interviewing the Virginia couple whosneaked into the White House state dinner three days earlier, a seniorfederal official involved in the investigation said on Sunday.
The interviews, which continued Saturday, were conducted in a "neutral location," neither the home of the couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, nor the Secret Service's downtown offices, the official said. He would not comment on either the content of the interviews or their length.
The Secret Service is still considering bringing charges against the Salahis, the official said, but the investigation is continuing.
"There are more interviews to do," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing inquiry.
Exactly how the Salahis infiltrated the White House state dinner for the Indian Prime Minister continued to preoccupy the capital on Sunday, with no substantive details emerging. A former White House press secretary, Dana Perino, predicted a tough time for the White House social office as the holiday parties approached.
Perino, a press secretary in the Bush administration, said on "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace" that once the Salahis were on the White House grounds, the social office might have played a role in processing them through the receiving line.
"What will be a concern for, I think, the social office going forward is they have their busiest season coming up," Perino said. "It's the holiday season. They'll have a lot of people coming through."
Ed Rollins, a Republican political operative, said Sunday that the Salahis should be prosecuted.
"They basically trespassed," Rollins said on "State of the Union" on CNN. "They had no right to be there. The Secret Service has a tough-enough task without having people dress up and pretend they're important."
Referring to the Salahis' reported intention to appear on the reality television show "The Real Housewives of Washington," Rollins continued, "These people want a reality TV show, give them one. It's called 'Dealing With the Federal Prosecution System of the District of Columbia.'"
A broader sampling of opinion turned up in posts on Michaele Salahi's Facebook page, where the couple first posted snapshots of their escapade. There it was hailed as an example of American egalitarianism and excoriated as a low-class stunt.
The Secret Service's Office of Professional Responsibility is conducting interviews in the case, and a spokesman for the agency, Jim Mackin, said Sunday that it would be at least Wednesday before the Secret Service would have anything to say. There will be a written report, Mackin said, "but it probably will not be made public."
"We do have measures in place to handle every type of event that takes place at the White House," he said. "What we have to do is make sure the measures and protocols we have in place are adhered to every single time."
An independent auditing agency, the office of the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, of which the Secret Service is a part, could also look into the matter, but it was not clear that it would do so. On Sunday the agency's public affairs representative refused to take a reporter's call. The inspector general did not reply to a message left at his home.
The inspector general's office prepared a report after The Washington Post in January quoted VIPs who complained that there were security breaches at President Barack Obama's inauguration, but by and large the report exonerated the agency.
The director of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, testified in March before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Homeland Security that his agency was adapting to the Obama presidency, but he focused on how Obama was likely to draw larger crowds than his predecessor.
Sullivan referred obliquely to Obama as the first African-American president, making note of the "historical significance of the election" as a reason that the agency was especially concerned about providing appropriate security.