The Virginia couple who breezed into last week’s Washington state dinner without an invitation said today that they were “shocked and devastated” at having been branded White House party crashers.

Looking more aggrieved than contrite, Michaele and Tareq Salahi broke a week’s public silence to insist that they were in fact invited to the dinner and that the American public would be “extremely surprised” when details to support the claim emerged.

Those details are thought to consist of an e-mail exchange between the Salahis and Michele Jones, a Pentagon liaison with the White House whom they approached to ask for an invitation to the event in honour of the Indian Prime Minister.

Ms Jones, the first woman sergeant major of the US Army Reserve, issued a statement through the White House saying that she was told specifically that the Salahis did not have tickets to any part of the evening’s activities and that in any case she “did not have the authority to authorise attendance, admittance or access”.

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said today that there was no misunderstanding that might have allowed the Salahis in without deception. “You don’t show up at the White House as a misunderstanding,” he said.

Mrs Salahi told the Today Show on NBC: “We were invited. Not crashers. There isn’t anyone who would have the audacity or the poor behaviour to do that.” Asked directly who invited them, Mr Salahi deferred to the investigation now under way into their actions.

“We’re working with the Secret Service. We’re respecting their timeline and everything they are doing,” he said.

The Salahis denied that they had been ejected from another exclusive Washington soiree last month. According to reports, they gained entrance to the Congressional Black Caucus dinner, also attended by Mr Obama, but were thrown out when a guest complained that they did not belong at his table.

Mrs Salahi is hoping for a role on a forthcoming reality TV series, Real Housewives of Washington DC, produced by a subsidiary of NBC, which broadcast today's interview. She and her husband denied receiving any payment for the interview and said of the past week: “Our lives have really been destroyed.”