Late last week a married couple Michaele and Tareq Salahi penetrated multiple levels of security to attend President Obama's first State Banquet. They managed to get their pictured taken with the Vice President and, the White House now confirms, chatted with the President himself.
It was all a publicity stunt. Like the balloon boy parents, these two were trying to get on a reality television show - rules be damned. One could write a book on how the distinction between fame and infamy is meaningless to people like this. I wonder if these two - the party crashers - thought about the potential criminal consequences. The thing is, the probably did think about it and decide the potential upside was worth the risk.
Now they are going to need a lawyer.
What these two will actually be charged with is unknown. Did they lie about their identity to the secret service to get in? Or, if they used their own names, did they misrepresent themselves in order to get on a guest list?
Not knowing those basic facts or what exactly they will be charged with, I have no idea how the trial itself will go. But I can make a guess what a defense attorney's closing argument would sound like (yes, I know that these two will have different lawyers, but humor me for a second):
Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, during the course of this trial you've gotten a chance to see and hear from my clients. You know that neither were armed and that neither are trained in any form of martial arts. This means that they didn't have the means to hurt the President, the Vice-President, or any of the other guests. You also have learned that both admire the President and were thrilled to meet him. This means that they didn't have a motive to hurt the President or disrupt this State Banquet. You learned that after meeting the President they left the Banquet without incident and went home. Bottom line: these were just two people who wanted to meet the President and Vice President and get their picture taken with them. That's all.
Let me suggest to you that these two people were like all the other guests that night. Everyone there wanted a few minutes with the President. Everyone wanted their picture taken with him. Just like all the other guests, they didn't hurt anyone and they never intended to hurt anyone. But unfortunately for the Salahi's, they embarrassed someone. They embarrassed powerful people who are responsible for protecting our President. My clients' visit demonstrated that their protection needs improvement. When normal people like you and I are embarrassed we learn from it, and move on. But not the powerful. Rather than learn from this situation they seek to destroy the messenger.
...and so forth. I do believe that the Salahi's will be charged with a crime and that their defense will make the arguments I just gave. I also think these arguments should fail.
Imagine that instead of being a couple of publicity hounds, the Salahi's had been subcontractors responsible for testing Presidential security. After sneaking in and getting their picture with the VP and getting close to the President, they leave and file a report for the Secret Service. That report would have been embarrassing for the Secret Service, but only within the ranks - because it would have been classified.
Why would it be classified? Because we don't want to advertise to people who would want to hurt the President that his security is anything but airtight. For the sake of a moment in the spotlight these two people have told the world that our President's security can be compromised by a couple of amateurs. For that they should be prosecuted.
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