Secret Service checkpoints breached

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Intruders have reached the president or another person under U.S. Secret Service guard eight times since 1980, the federal agency confirmed.

Four of the incidents involved the same man and the most recent intrusion occurred last month when Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed President Obama's first White House state dinner, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Overall, intruders breached Secret Service checkpoints at least 91 times since 1980, secret service and federal homeland security officials said.

The secret service, however, last year alone successfully protected 34 key U.S. officials and 222 United Nations dignitaries at myriad locations throughout the world, agency spokesman Edwin Donovan said.

Richard Weaver, a California minister, evaded detection four times in 1991, 1997, 2001 and 2003 to infiltrate events for Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, The Post reported.

"I believe God makes me invisible to the security, undetectable," Weaver told reporters after one his arrests.