The Bravo television network, which airs the “Real Housewives” series, confirmed Thursday that Michaele and Tareq Salahi were being followed by cameras from producers of the series on the same day the couple made it into the White House (but were not present for their entry), according to a network spokesperson. The show’s cameras appear to have captured the car carrying the Salahis as it neared the White House complex but did not follow the couple inside, a Bravo official said.

A spokesperson for Bravo told POLITICO that Michaele Salahi is “under consideration” for a role on the show and that Half Yard Productions, which produces the series, filmed the couple “on that day as they prepared for the event.”

“The Half Yard crew were not on White House grounds,” a Bravo official said. “They filmed them traveling there and were done once cars reached the security checkpoint.”

“The Salahis informed Half Yard that they were invited and the producers had no reason to believe otherwise,” the spokesperson said in an e-mail, confirming an earlier report by The New York Times.

White House officials have insisted that the couple was not invited. The Secret Service has said that it is investigating the apparent security breakdown, but the agency has downplayed the seriousness of the incident by noting that the couple was required to go through security screening.

However, experts said that kind of screening, which cannot detect exotic weapons or protect against the threat of a rudimentary physical assault, was not a substitute for a proper background check.

Photographs the couple posted on Facebook show them snugly embracing Vice President Joe Biden during events that evening. Another snapshot shows them posing with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

In a separate development Thursday, the White House knocked down suggestions by former officials that a representative of the White House Social Office would have been at the security checkpoint and might have cleared in the Salahis.

“We were not,” White House social secretary Desiree Rogers told The Associated Press. It was not clear if social office personnel might have been contacted by phone or e-mail when the Salahis showed up.

A homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, Fran Townsend, suggested that the couple could face felony charges if they lied to the Secret Service or White House staff about being invited. Others suggested the couple could be charged with trespassing.

However, a publicist said to be representing the couple, Mahogany Jones suggested Thursday that they had some invitation to the event.

CNN reported that Jones insisted the pair had “full clearance to attend the state dinner.”

And a Virginia lawyer who has represented the couple in the past said the pair was innocent of any wrongdoing.

“They just went to a party. They didn’t do anything wrong,” attorney Paul Morrison told The Associated Press.