Katie McCormick, First Lady's Press Secretary notified of crashers by WP Reporter at 7:35 pm and did nothing, or got a pass from her boss.
Posted on 12/01/2009 5:02:14 PM PST by cushman
Matthews: Let‘s move on. Clearly, the Secret Service is taking a hit here. But is this a White House issue, too? Where were the White House staff the other night? And why weren‘t they stationed at every checkpoint, like they used to be?
ROBERTS: ... misidentified them, but I didn‘t think so. And I said, Can you tell me why they‘re not on the list? And she said, I don‘t know, but I‘ll try to find out. And I didn‘t hear anything for the rest of the evening.
And the reason I think that‘s important is that even after they got inside the White House, the staff had two opportunities to go upstairs to the reception, discreetly pull this couple aside and verify that they were supposed to be there. I don‘t know what time they went through the receiving line, but if they had any ill intention toward the president...
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
MATTHEWS: And who were they?
ROBERTS: Courtney O‘Donnell and Katie McCormick.
ROXANNE ROBERTS, “WASHINGTON POST”: Yes. I was in the press pool, and the press are sequestered behind ropes, and guests are announced by Maureen (ph), and they come sailing through. Sometimes they talk to us, sometimes they don‘t, and then they go into the dinner.
This couple walks through, and my head sort of shot up because I heard the name, and I looked at them and I thought to myself, Could it be? They looked exactly like this reality show couple, kind of sketchy, from Virginia, and it didn‘t make any sense to me. I looked down at my guest list, because we get official guest lists, and their names weren‘t on it.
They walked through, and I immediately grabbed a White House staffer and said, Could you please verify the names of the people that just came through? And why aren‘t they on the list?
MATTHEWS: What time was this?
ROBERTS: I time-checked our photo that our photographer took at 7:35.
MATTHEWS: So at 7:35, you were “The Washington Post,” and you‘re a well-known reporter and a respected reporter, you told a White House staffer that these people were not on list. And what did they say?
ROBERTS: They didn‘t know why. She said they didn‘t know why.
MATTHEWS: But they did know they weren‘t on the list.
ROBERTS: I said to them, They‘re not on the list. And I said, Why? And she said, I don‘t know. And so then, probably about 15 minutes later, I said to a member of the first lady‘s staff as they were escorting the press back to the press room, I said, This couple that came through—I gave the names again. And they‘d only been announced as Mr. and Mrs. Salahi, so I gave what I thought were their full names. I wanted to make sure—it‘s possible I had...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
ROBERTS: ... misidentified them, but I didn‘t think so. And I said, Can you tell me why they‘re not on the list? And she said, I don‘t know, but I‘ll try to find out. And I didn‘t hear anything for the rest of the evening.
And the reason I think that‘s important is that even after they got inside the White House, the staff had two opportunities to go upstairs to the reception, discreetly pull this couple aside and verify that they were supposed to be there. I don‘t know what time they went through the receiving line, but if they had any ill intention toward the president...
So the Secret Service is taking the fall but Courtney O‘Donnell and/or Katie McCormick get to keep their jobs because evidently, one or both let them in?
More of the transcript: They knew early on and did nothing = incompetence throughout his administration.
ATTHEWS: OK, here we get this question. What is the White House reaction today? Because you were a reporter. You told them, according to your reporting just now—and I read this before in the day—that you knew as of early—about mid—right in the early part of the evening...
KESSLER: Right.
MATTHEWS: You did your job. Well, you did more than your job. You checked the story. You had a story. There were people at the White House that shouldn‘t have been there. You were—you performed a great service, potentially. If somebody had done something at that point, this would have been important. They would have grabbed these people, taken them out of the room, and there would have been no issue here.
KESSLER: Well, it didn‘t occur to me that they had crashed the event. It just seemed like an anomaly. They didn‘t seem like the people I expected to be at the Obamas‘ first...
MATTHEWS: Well, they wouldn‘t, would they.
KESSLER: No. They didn‘t, but...
MATTHEWS: They wouldn‘t. Assassins don‘t wear masks.
KESSLER: But the fact is, is that this is a relatively inexperienced White House staff when it comes to these kinds of things. And what—when a reporter says to two people, You know, they‘re not on the list, it should have raised a couple red flags. Someone should have said, There‘s someone here who‘s saying there‘s a couple people here that as far as we know aren‘t supposed to be here. And they didn‘t, as far as I could tell, do anything about that.
The video of the entrance is funny. The media photogs are snapping shots like crazy, and the woman grabbed the guy in order to stand in front of them and pose. The woman seems to have major problems.
Wonder if Courtney O‘Donnell and Katie McCormick were instructed to let them in. Did they even report that these 2 guests weren’t on the list?
It's coming.
What went on here was that in time of war we had the Vice President and the President together in the same place, partying down, and someone managed to put a fellow with close PLO connections on the floor.
He got his picture taken with both, possibly as proof of his having gotten physical access.
Saddam Hussein's daughter is probably paying his debts as we speak.
Was Nancy Pelosi there? If she wasn't (she's in line right behind Biden if the office is vacated suddenly) then I'd be investigating her britches off right down to her purple toenails!
The former Social Secretary who used to do this was fired by this admin. for being a part of the Bush admin.
The new Obama staff dropped the ball.
Do the Salahi’s have Ukrainian Flu perhaps?
Katie McCormick, First Lady's Press Secretary notified of crashers by WP Reporter at 7:35 pm and did nothing, or got a pass from her boss.
The lying (by omission this time) Associated Press said in its Yahoo-linked article that the Secret Service will adjust its procedures to add White House social staff to the entrances, omitting the fact that this is what was already done during the Bush administration. They made it sound like ZerO will just improve things. I hate the DBM.
First Ladies staff Courtney O’Donnell and Katie McCormick knew they weren’t on the list. They are all incompetent. Or they were instructed to let them slide. Which is it?
They are trying to cover it up. Matthews asked the Rep tonight if the O administration asked him to stop the congressional investigation.
That’s the first I’ve heard of this!
bttt
Shocked that C Matthews was reporting it. He brought it up again tonight and played the clip. The reporter still laid a lot of blame on the SS, but she was on it rather quickly that they weren’t on the list.
ROXANNE ROBERTS, “WASHINGTON POST”: Yes. I was in the press pool, and the press are sequestered behind ropes, and guests are announced by Maureen (ph), and they come sailing through. Sometimes they talk to us, sometimes they don‘t, and then they go into the dinner.
This couple walks through, and my head sort of shot up because I heard the name, and I looked at them and I thought to myself, Could it be? They looked exactly like this reality show couple, kind of sketchy, from Virginia, and it didn‘t make any sense to me. I looked down at my guest list, because we get official guest lists, and their names weren‘t on it.
They walked through, and I immediately grabbed a White House staffer and said, Could you please verify the names of the people that just came through? And why aren‘t they on the list?
MATTHEWS: What time was this?
ROBERTS: I time-checked our photo that our photographer took at 7:35.
MATTHEWS: So at 7:35, you were “The Washington Post,” and you‘re a well-known reporter and a respected reporter, you told a White House staffer that these people were not on list. And what did they say?
ROBERTS: They didn‘t know why. She said they didn‘t know why.
MATTHEWS: But they did know they weren‘t on the list.
ROBERTS: I said to them, They‘re not on the list. And I said, Why? And she said, I don‘t know. And so then, probably about 15 minutes later, I said to a member of the first lady‘s staff as they were escorting the press back to the press room, I said, This couple that came through—I gave the names again. And they‘d only been announced as Mr. and Mrs. Salahi, so I gave what I thought were their full names. I wanted to make sure—it‘s possible I had...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
ROBERTS: ... misidentified them, but I didn‘t think so. And I said, Can you tell me why they‘re not on the list? And she said, I don‘t know, but I‘ll try to find out. And I didn‘t hear anything for the rest of the evening.
And the reason I think that‘s important is that even after they got inside the White House, the staff had two opportunities to go upstairs to the reception, discreetly pull this couple aside and verify that they were supposed to be there. I don‘t know what time they went through the receiving line, but if they had any ill intention toward the president...
Also, tonight Matthews interviewed Rep Benny Thompson (Mississippi) who chairs the homeland security team which is holding hearings on Thursday. He was appointed by Obama and he’s laying all the blame on the SS. Here’s the clip.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews#34229414
Thank you for finding and posting this. I caught the replay on Hardball tonight. The story just gets worse for the Obama White House.
That's what the WH wants us to believe and I almost fell for it until I heard them speak. There's more to this than meets the eye.
sw
Mr and Mrs Pelosi were there.
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