Highest paid WH aide arrested for shoplifting

Claude Allen, the former Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, resigned for undisclosed reasons a few weeks ago. Think Progress explains his resignation. He was arrested Thursday.

Even though Claude was receivieng the highest pay a white House employee can get ($161,000 per year) it appears that he has been supplementing his pay by shoplifting. Here is the Montgomery County (MD.) Police Department report:

On January 2, 2006, a Target store Loss Prevention Manger observed an unknown man enter the store located at 25 Grand Corner Avenue in Gaithersburg. He was observed in the store with an empty Target bag in a shopping cart. The man was then seen selecting merchandise throughout the store and placing items in the Target bag. He put additional items in his cart. The man then went to guest services where he produced a receipt and received a refund for the items he had just selected from the store shelves. After receiving the refund he left the store without paying for the additional merchandise in the shopping cart. He was apprehended by the store employee.

The Target Loss Prevention Manger contacted Montgomery County Police and through the police investigation it was learned that Allen had been receiving refunds in an amount exceeding $5,000 during last year. Some of the fraudulent returns were made at Target stores and some at Hecht’s stores. He would buy items, take them out to his car, and return to the store with the receipt. He would select the same items he had just purchased, and then return them for a refund. Allen is known to have conducted approximately 25 of these types of refunds, having the money credited to his credit cards.

Throughout 2005 he obtained refunds for items ranging from clothing, a Bose theater system, stereo equipment, and photo printer to items valued only at $2.50.

So far the current White House has had two top aides resign because of criminal wrong-doing, and Karl Rove is still being investigated. [To throw Dick Cheney into this group for getting drunk and shooting a lawyer is probably shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it?]

These are not minor employees, either. All three receive or received the highest pay that a White House employee can receive. These are the President's closest advisors. Clearly besides being incompetent (Katrina, anyone?) the White House is filled with crooks.

This isn't much of an endorsement for Bush's fabled "ability to judge people," is it?

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So who is Claude Allen?
Claude A. Allen -- White House
Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy

Most recently, Claude A. Allen was the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. He also served as the Secretary of Health and Human Resources for the State of Virginia and served in the Virginia Attorney General's Office from 1995 to 1998. He was an Associate at Baker & Botts in Washington, D.C. from 1991 to 1995 and served as a professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1985 to 1987. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and Duke University Law School.