The fact that party crashers were allowed into a White House State Dinner without being on the guest list is emblematic of the Secret Service’s corner cutting detailed in my book, “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect.”
It’s clear from the Secret Service’s comment that the agency not only ignored the fact that the couple was not on the guest list but also did not do the usual background check to ensure that they were not possible threats. The party crashers could have had outstanding arrest warrants for murder. They could have been involved with terrorists. They could have been agents of Iran or North Korea. The Secret Service would never have known.
While the couple did pass through a magnetometer to detect weapons, they could have assassinated the president or vice president using other means, anthrax, for example. The additional security checks referred to by the Secret Service spokesman screen for such items as radiological contamination but would not detect secreted biological weapons.
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