Tales from the Trail

The most famous party crashers (hint red sari and tux) who so gaily chatted with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at a swank White House state dinner in November (photos still proudly displayed on Facebook), clammed up when they attended a different event on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

In fact, Tareq and Michaele Salahi were decidedly not engaging in conversation with members of Congress at the  House Homeland Security Committee hearing and basically had only one line for them:

“On advice of counsel I respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your question,” he said, and she repeated.

One lawmaker had enough of the one-liners. “Let me ask you a question, were you there?”

When Tareq Salahi started to repeat his refrain, Congressman William Pascrell interrupted with: “Are you here today Mr. Salahi? Are you here right now?”

President Barack Obama’s senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, feels the White House doesn’t need Congress to help it maintain openness on the Crasher-gate scandal. That’s why it’s chosen to eschew the limelight of a Capitol Hill hearing today.

“We think we’ve really answered the questions fully,” she told ABC’s Good Morning America, while making the TV rounds to defend a White House decision not to send its social secretary to explain how a Virginia couple got into last week’s state dinner without an invitation.

“Having a full review up on the (White House) Web site, where everyone in the country — anyone who goes on our Web site — can read it, is the definition of transparency.”

It’s not quite the glamorous soiree they attended at the White House, but the party-crashing duo has been invited to a different Washington function.

Will they RSVP and accept the invitation? No one knows.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson plans to hold a hearing on Thursday about the breach of security at the White House last week when Michaele and Tareq Salahi crashed the State Dinner for the Indian prime minister and hobnobbed with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

“The Committee plans to invite testimony from Mr. and Mrs. Salahi, who managed to attend portions of the State Dinner without proper White House and Secret Service clearance,” a statement from Thompson said.