Cirque Du Salahi: Be Careful Who You Trust (21 page)

On November 30, the
New York Times
declared “the Salahis were intruders who infiltrated the White House.” That same day television station WJXT in Jacksonville, Florida, aired a report featuring Tareq’s older half-brother, Dr. Ismail Salahi, who declared, “I definitely don’t put it past him to do something like this. … A lot of the things they’ve done have not really been what I consider ethical or moral. That’s the path they chose to take.” Nowhere in the story did the station reveal the simmering family feud over the winery that had fractured the family and caused the brothers not to speak for years.

The Salahi media storm went worldwide, with many foreign newspapers and television outlets jumping on the story. One of the Salahis’ friends in Washington admitted that during this time it was considered “social suicide” to be seen with them, or to
even speak kindly about them
. Several people who knew the Salahis agreed to be interviewed for attribution. Among them was Erwin Gomez, the owner of the salon where Michaele readied herself for the White House event. From his Georgetown salon, he openly and repeatedly trashed the Salahis. Every time he was quoted, the name of his salon was prominently mentioned.

“They are such crooked people!” he told me when I called for an interview. When asked for details, Gomez explained that Michaele still owed him “more than a thousand dollars” for doing her makeup on her wedding day
seven years earlier.
Gomez admits he never sent Michaele a bill for the service, but was among the hundreds who enjoyed her lavish wedding reception at the winery. Gomez was quoted in several articles and was seen on television interviews repeating the mantra, “She’s like a professional con artist … (but) when you meet her it’s hard to hate her… and to say, hey, you owe me money!” Gomez’ business and domestic partner, James Packard-Gomez, now estranged, was overheard at a luncheon event at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in June of 2010 by two people while he loudly apologized to Michaele.

“I’m so sorry we said all those things about you!” he is quoted as saying, “But you know how business works. It was all just for press. Every time we spoke our business went up … our Google alerts went up! Since the whole thing launched our business is up 200 percent!”

On the first of December, WTTG-TV ran another story that the Salahis adamantly deny. Reporter Claudia Coffey marveled at the “Facebook journalism” of the Salahi story, because she got so many “good tips” that way. For example, she got word on Facebook that Michaele would be doing a photo shoot at Georgetown’s historic landmark, the Halcyon House. She dashed over to see if she could get an interview, but the Salahis stayed mum as they hustled inside. While waiting for the event to end, Coffey says, “I got another tip via Facebook that she had borrowed thirty thousand dollars in jewelry from the David Yurman jewelers and that she had refused to return it. A guy was to come by to repo the jewelry any minute.”

As if on cue, Jason Hoskinson, the Yurman representative who loaned Michaele the jewelry she wore to the state dinner, arrived and tried to enter.

“There was a Fox 5 reporter at the door of Halcyon House when I arrived and she was saying to me, ‘Are you here to get the jewelry back? Why won’t she give you the jewelry back?’ That was all so completely false. I don’t even know how all that whole thing happened.”

Hoskinson explained, “I loaned (Michaele) jewelry, as we do many public figures to wear to different functions. You deliver some pieces, then loan them some more. It’s done all the time! The company knew all about it.”

Hoskinson said because of all the hubbub surrounding the Salahis, there simply hadn’t been an opportunity to make an earlier jewelry swap.

“It was an absolute shock to me that this woman was there asking me if I was with David Yurman. This reporter got some sort of leak - it was all so out of left field. So many people have so many ulterior motives in this town!”

Coffey says she stands by her story and that a source at the store told her they had tried three times to get the jewelry back. Coffey bragged that the jewelry story, combined with two others she did regarding the Salahis’ outstanding financial troubles, had earned her an Emmy award.

On Sunday, December 6
^th
the
Washington Post
decided to skew the Salahi coverage to focus on the way they looked. The headline read: “Why they got in: They looked like they belonged.” This quote was written by Robin Givhan, who raised the specter of Secret Service agents harboring some sort of subtle racist attitudes inside the White House.

Few of the stories that have been written and produced about Michaele and Tareq Salahi have failed to mention Michaele’s platinum blond locks and her reed thin figure. She is, indeed, a striking woman who maintains a shade of blond that typically isn’t seen on anyone over the age of two. She also has the kind of lean body that, while not voluptuous or curvy in a va-va-voom way, is reminiscent of a model’s. She has chiseled cheekbones and an enormous smile. And while one could debate whether she is attractive—to each their own, after all—she conforms to the cultural standards of what a wealthy, privileged, important person is assumed to look like. Call it tall, thin, white, blond privilege.

Imagine if a reporter wrote the converse, that Carlos Allen got in to the state dinner without a bona fide invitation simply because he was well dressed and black. There would likely be a hue and cry that race had been mentioned at all.

There was one article in the
Washington Post
written by Spencer S. Hsu which put the Salahis’ case in helpful perspective and historical context. Once again, with editors at the
Washington Post
knowing full well the Salahis had been politely
allowed in
the White House by Secret Service agents, they nevertheless used the lead paragraph of the December 7, 2009 story to revisit the erroneous “Gate-Crashers” title. They went on from there to lump the Salahis in with mentally disturbed people who would menace our elected officials.

A summary of a secret 2003 report obtained by The Washington Post, along with descriptions of more recent incidents by federal homeland security officials, places Tareq and Michaele Salahi squarely in a rogues’ gallery of autograph hounds, publicity seekers, unstable personalities and others identified by the Secret Service as defeating its checkpoints at least 91 times since 1980.

The only assailant to injure a president in the past three decades was John W. Hinckley Jr., who shot and wounded Ronald Reagan in 1981 from outside the security perimeter established by the Secret Service.

Nevertheless, the list of security breaches exposes significant gaps that could be exploited by would-be assassins, the document states, and erode “one of the best tools for deterring future attempts”—the aura of invulnerability around the White House.

Ninety-one previous times, the Secret Service had been defeated, yet none of those episodes warranted the massive media coverage of this one—save for the Hinkley assassination attempt. Meanwhile, the commercial media empire focused on what Michaele Salahi ate—or didn’t eat—for lunch, the Salahi family winery feud, and any scrap of minor detail that could somehow be attached to the main story of White House security and presidential protection. And of course, there were always those dazzling, damning photos accompanying every story, overriding all the words.

It was as if the media had declared Michaele Salahi the modern day Hester Prynne with a big red “C” for “Crasher” on her forehead—red, to match her now-famous red sari. The list of negative news articles and television broadcasts about the Salahis could fill a very thick book.

Even their long time friend, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine turned on them. Perhaps he felt obligated to do so because he was in the process of leaving his post and taking over as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Reporters flocked to Kaine because of his long association with the couple. Did he stick up for his political benefactors? Here is his response:

“If somebody had said to me, ‘Hey, someone in Virginia is trying to crash a party.’ There are 7.5 million Virginians, who do you think it might be? I think I might have been able to guess in about five seconds,” he smugly told the gathered press corps.

When asked why he would immediately think of the Salahis, Mr. Kaine said, “because he is such a promoter … They’re big personalities and they’re big self-promoters. You don’t have to know them about five minutes before you realize that.” Ironic, coming from a self-promoting politician.

Back home in Virginia, the couple was stung by the knowledge that not even long time friends would stand by them now. They were besieged by reporters knocking on their door, traipsing around their property—even trying to remove window screens for better picture taking. One insistent woman from the
Washington Examiner
was videotaped on their front porch banging on the door yelling, “I know you’re in there! I can hear you talking!” There were media phone calls all hours of the day and night and the embarrassment of having to explain to their closest friends and family what details they could.

The Salahis were quite simply scared to death. They willingly took the advice of the powers-that-be at Bravo who kept hammering on them about the need to stay silent. They were reminded over and over that the contract they’d signed for the TV show included a strict confidentiality clause. No speaking
—
ever
—
about what went on during filming, production or planning days. That warning was reinforced by Stephen Best, a partner in one of DC’s most prestigious law firms, Dewey & LeBoeuf. Best, a long time criminal defense lawyer, was well connected and knew some of the top officials at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington. He cautioned his clients that there was a federal investigation underway complete with a sitting federal grand jury. He warned the Salahis in no uncertain terms that with such negative public sentiment against them they could very well be charged with a crime. His advice was for the Salahis to keep mum and leave the country for a while. Their dire financial situation precluded that.

Inside their three story home, decorated in Michaele’s favorite beiges and gold colors, Tareq parked himself in front of his laptop computer and stayed there for hours on end, building a massive file in a desperate attempt to protect themselves with a full record of where the rumors came from and how they were spread. He downloaded every article, cataloged the link to every TV show that mentioned their name, and saved every blog or internet photo in which they were featured.

He tended their Facebook pages and cultivated the downloaded files much as he once did the vines at the Oasis Vineyard. It became his daily work. Tareq was just as much a lightning rod for ridicule as his wife and just as much a subject of public curiosity, even though it was she who was chosen as one of Bravo’s “
Housewives of D.C
.” (“We both signed Bravo contracts, you know,” he says.) Both Salahis seemed equally overwhelmed by the attention. Neither had the knowledge or foresight to manage what was happening to them.

Tareq pledged to be resolute in standing by his ailing wife. He watched while the strain of the situation inflamed Michaele’s MS symptoms to a frightening degree.

NBC’s
Today Show
scored the first on-camera interview with the Salahis on Tuesday, December 1st. It was America’s first time to hear what this reviled couple had to say—and on live, unedited television. They appeared via satellite from Washington, with Michaele and Tareq each wearing a solemn black jacket with accents of blue. Host Matt Lauer asked the question that was on everyone’s mind. “Were you or were you not invited to attend that state dinner?”

They both gave definitive answers, though Michaele responded first, “We were invited, not crashers and there isn’t anyone that would have the audacity or the poor behavior to do that … No one would do that,” she insisted in a somber tone.

Tareq added, “This has been the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to us. We’re greatly saddened by all the circumstances that have been involved in portraying my wife and I as party crashers. I can tell you we did not party crash the White House.”

The next day, the
Washington Post
coverage of their comments and Lauer’s interview was overshadowed by ridicule from Lisa de Moraes, in her widely read TV Column.

The foul scent of filthy lucre hung in the air. Matt immediately wanted to know: “Are you appearing here today in any way because of any financial deal that you have made with this network? Are we paying you for this appearance in any way?” (We can’t help wondering whether this question might not have been better put to his bosses.)