While the Secret Service apologizes and Senators threaten criminal charges against the state dinner party crashers, it is looking more like a failure on the part of White House social secretary, and monied BFF of FLOTUS, Desiree Rogers

She’s the intimate Chicago fund-raising crony of Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett who was once married to fellow Obama crony and frequent White House visitor John Rogers, chief executive of multi-billion-dollar Ariel Capital Management. They both bundled hundreds of thousands in donations for Team Obama before Desiree was appointed to head the White House social secretary’s office

Rewarding friends in high places with places in an administration is a longtime practice. However, booting out non-political staff because they have ties to a prior administration can come with some serious consequences.

The White House staff member whose job was to supervise the guest list for state dinners and clear invitees into the events says she was stripped of most of her responsibilities earlier this year, prompting her to resign last June.

The account of Cathy Hargraves, who formerly served as White House “assistant for arrangements,” raises new questions about whether changes that she says were made by President Obama’s social secretary, Desiree Rogers, may have contributed to the security lapses that permitted Virginia socialites Michele and Tareq Salahi to crash the state dinner for India’s prime minister last week and get themselves photographed with the president.

Hargraves tells Declassified in an exclusive interview that, while she had originally been hired as a White House political appointee in 2001, she landed a new position on the White House residence staff in 2006 and was specifically detailed to the social office to work on state dinners.

Her job duties included overseeing the invitations for guests at state dinners and keeping track of RSVPs, she says. On the evening of state dinners, she says, she physically stood at the East Gate portico entrance and greeted each of the guests as they arrived, checking their names off a computerized printout of those who had been invited.

But when she met with Rogers last February and went over her job responsibilities, she says, the new social secretary told her, “We don’t feel we have a need for that anymore.” Rogers’s explanation, according to Hargraves: “In these economic times, I don’t think we’re going to have very many lavish expensive dinners. It wouldn’t look very good.” [...]

During President George W. Bush’s administration, it was standard procedure to have someone from the White House social office at the gate for state dinners and other events with large groups of visitors, according to a former senior Bush aide who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to be seen as criticizing the Obama White House.

The social office is most knowledgeable about the guest list and could have been called in case of any uncertainty, this official said…White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, asked by The Associated Press on Thursday whether personnel from her office were at the checkpoint said, “We were not.”

Whatever happens to Michaele and Tareq Salahi is up to the authorities; but it is clear that Desiree Rogers should be fired. And it should have happened last week.