Secret Service head will testify, social secretary won't on dinner crashers

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan is expected to show up and take his lumps Thursday at a congressional hearing on how attention-hungry socialites managed to invite themselves to President Obama's first state dinner.

But the White House social secretary won't testify but any bungling by her office that allowed Tareq and Michaele Salahi to rub shoulders with dignitaries all the way up to Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

The Secret Service has acknowledged it did not follow its security procedures at a checkpoint, and Sullivan has already issued a statement of apology and regret.

“The Secret Service has told us that this was the result of human error and the failure of an agent to follow established security protocols," Representative Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement this afternoon after receiving a briefing from Secret Service Deputy Director Faron Paramore.

"They have taken responsibility for a breach in security and we will take them at their word," Issa added. "Moving forward, the Secret Service has told us that they are examining its protocols and procedures to ensure that this never happens again. There should be no rush to judgment until the Secret Service has completed its internal review and reported back to us.”

White House social secretary Desiree Rogers has also acknowledged that no one from her office was at the checkpoint to help identify guests, but Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs said today she would decline the House Homeland Security committee's invitation to testify.

Gibbs cited the separation of powers and a history of White House staff not testifying before Congress, and also said the first family is "quite pleased" with Rogers' performance.

But the committee's top Republican, Representative Peter King of New York, who had requested that Rogers testify, urged the White House to reconsider, the Associated Press reports. "The White House is creating a needless confrontation and is raising serious issues about its judgment on the night of the state dinner," King said.

UPDATE: In a memorandum sent to White House employees today, deputy chief of staff Jim Messina also said there should have been White House staffers at the checkpoint along with the Secret Service agents, the Washington Post reported on its website.

"It is clear that the White House did not do everything we could have done to assist the United States Secret Service in ensuring that only invited guests enter the complex," Messina wrote. "White House staff were walking back and forth outside between the check points helping guests and were available to the Secret Service throughout the
evening, but clearly we can do more, and we will do more."

Issa said in a statement responding to the memo, “It’s encouraging that the White House is acknowledging that parts of the process were flawed and that they can be active participants in ensuring a breach like this never happens again by returning to practices that were utilized by previous administrations. It’s imperative that all the parties involved work diligently and cooperatively to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. The Secret Service briefing we received today confirmed that this was the result of human-error which means it is correctable and can be avoided in the future. Everyone takes very seriously the safety and security of the president and the foreign dignitaries they host.”