Tareq Salahi Bio: Was On American Task Force On Palestine

Taleq and Michaele Salahi went on the "Today" show Tuesday and emphatically denied crashing President Obama's first state dinner. "This has been the most devastating thing that has ever happened to us," Tareq Salahi said.

Emails show the couple asked the Defense Department about attending. Apparently, they understood from the email exchange that they were invited.

Taleq Salahi is on the board of the American Task Force on Palestine, a DC non-profit lobbying group advocating a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But since the state dinner incident, his bio has disappeared from the group's website.

Talking Points Memo has a screengrab of Salahi's bio here.

Gawker originally speculated that the Indian ambassador helped Salahi and his wife sneak into the dinner -- they know him through polo. But the Indian Embassy denied any involvement.

Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[american-dolt]

10:52 AM on 12/03/2009

This is reason enough to reel in the "Patriot Act"

[Brother Mike]

02:02 PM on 12/03/2009

I'm sorry but I missing your point here

[v eyepete]

08:08 AM on 12/03/2009

I seems they got to take pictures with everyone! These two seem like a couple of well heeled star-muckers' to me, basking in the glow of other people's fame. Perhaps they did us all a service which tells us security for the president is not what it should be. They dress well........

[Martha12]

10:40 PM on 12/02/2009

The purpose of a STATE DINNER is to do business with and honor other countries by receiving their heads of state.

It is THE foreign affair event within the US.

This breach of security points out the other countries leaders are not safe within the Whitehouse walls.

This is a terrible foreign affairs debacle.

Just think for a moment, if POTUS were in a another country, that was hosting a dinner for him, honoring their relationship with the US and uninvited guests like THESE slipped in and for days it was all over the news.

Would the US feel comfortable about POTUS returning to that country?

Would you worry about his safety every time he had to travel there?

How would that affect relationship between the countries?

Would the US feel marginalized and mocked by a breech perpetrated by clowns like this?

NO ONE has mentioned how the Indian heads of state or their country perceives this or feels about it.

The US wants India to rid their country of the Taliban because the Taliban poses a threat to the US, yet the US cannot guarantee the safety of India's leader, within their very own counties capitol building.......

How do you think THAT'S going over with the folks in India? Their leaders have to answer to their people too.

[ifitwereme]

04:14 PM on 12/02/2009

oh will someone please fact check his bio? I would but I'm off to a dinner at the white house.

[46n09]

03:24 PM on 12/02/2009

If they really believed they were invited, why did they leave when everyone sat down for dinner? Can someone explain that? Or did I misunderstand?

[RSKaz]

01:56 PM on 12/02/2009

Easy mistake. I often think I have millions of dollars transferred into by back account based on emails I get from a prince in Nigeria.

[vet-of4renwarz]

04:30 PM on 12/02/2009

Wait a sec... he emailed you too ?

[RSKaz]

06:05 PM on 12/02/2009

Maybe we're related.

[redsongia]

01:24 PM on 12/02/2009

There are con men like this all over the place, with an air of legitimacy about them and tons of affiliations to all sorts of groups, boards, committees, charities.

Basically, they live on credit and make up corporations endlessly in order to default on their debt.

[BonesAK]

12:46 PM on 12/02/2009

English challenged are they?

Sound like grifters to me.

[condor101]

11:45 AM on 12/02/2009

Arrest them and charge them with lying to a federal official and trespassing.
This is serious; Otherwise there will be copycats doing this.

Give them a few years in Prison to wipe off their smiles.

[Welib]

10:05 AM on 12/02/2009

Michaele told her hair dresser that they had an invitation but she couldn't produce it when the girl asked to see it. Michaele said it was left in the car. That was big lie. Obviously they knew they had no invite or they would have produced proof by now. Liars. Throw them in jail!

[fairplaystacy]

09:40 AM on 12/02/2009

While they're in prison they can take correspondence classes to improve their english. Maybe ESL classes (english as a second language) might come in handy for the next time someone tells them NO WAY.

[caroledekamp]

09:38 AM on 12/02/2009

Well if they wanted to be famous they got it....all over the news...

[Marnie1]

09:21 AM on 12/02/2009

They thought the Pentagon would offer an invite to a formal WH dinner by email? With no pre invite security check?

Even a dumb city hick like me would expect a formal invitation, (heavy card stock, gold embossing, suitable for framing) and would expect a longish security check.

Even applying for an NSA translator job back in the 60's had my friends saying they had been called by the FBI to ask about me. And I wasn't going anywhere near the WH.
If the Gov went to the trouble to track down my friends for a low security job, just imagine what they do to check out the people who are let loose around the President.

The Salahis come off as very stupid people.

[studmoose]

09:04 AM on 12/02/2009

Your cell phone battery was dead? It better have been!

The carrier has records of when a phone is ever connected to their network, it's location - in addition to the time stamps of when someone's voicemail message system was accessed. Good luck.

[jukesgrrl]

12:37 AM on 12/02/2009

Anybody who doesn't know that one is invited to a State Dinner via an engraved invitation sent through the U.S. Postal Service is a first-class boor. Who could possibly imagine that such an invitation would come via E-mail? And upon request, no less!

Hey Michelle, I'd like to come for Christmas brunch and to watch the kids open their gifts -- OK?

[CalGoldenBear]

05:13 PM on 12/02/2009

Uh, you do mean "boob" don't you?

Taken together, this couple doesn't add up to a full deck.

Who gets invited to the first Obama state dinner, much less ANY WH state dinner, via e-mail, especially from the Department of Defense?

Would these two jokers later frame the e-mail invite and hang it on their wall?

As you rightly point out, one would expect an engraved invite -- whether to a state dinner or other WH event or the 2009 inaugural -- via first-class mail, with a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue return address.