Biden says couple who crashed state dinner seemed at home

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Vice President Joe Biden, who posed for photos with the White House party crashers at last week’s state dinner, says he didn’t know the couple and saw nothing to make him suspicious of them.

“I just assumed like everyone else they were guests. They acted like they knew everybody in the room,” Biden said Wednesday in morning television interviews. They acted, Biden said, “like they were my old buddies.”

Asked whether he thought the couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, should face criminal charges for attending without an invitation, Biden said: “There’s an old joke: That’s above my pay grade.”

The couple have said that they believed they had been invited. The Secret Service says they weren’t on the guest list and that it erred by letting them into the Nov. 24 dinner for the Indian prime minister.

Biden said he was “completely satisfied” with the Secret Service, which he said does “a great job protecting me and my family.”

Biden spoke on NBC’s “Today” show and CBS’ “The Early Show.”

-- Associated Press