Bush aide Claude Allen arrested on shoplifting charges

Tony Allen-Mills

New York — U.S. President George W. Bush’s battered image suffered another damaging blow last weekend with reports that his former top domestic policy adviser had been arrested for allegedly swindling two large department stores in a shoplifting scam.

Claude Allen, a prominent conservative who had become the highest-ranking African American on the White House staff, resigned last month, telling the President he wanted to spend more time with his family.

But it emerged last weekend that Mr Allen had been interviewed by police in early January after he allegedly left a Maryland shop with goods he had not paid for. He was arrested last week and charged with two counts of theft that carry maximum sentences of 15 years in jail.

Mr Bush said he was “shocked” by the arrest: “If the allegations are true, something went wrong in Claude Allen’s life, and that is really sad.”

The arrest is the latest in a series of embarrassments for the White House, which is appearing dangerously accident-prone. Mr Bush’s approval ratings have fallen to 37 per cent in one poll and 34 in another. Only Richard Nixon, the disgraced former president, had lower ratings at this stage of his second term.

Mr Allen, 45, is a born-again Christian and former lawyer who joined the administration in 2001 and was appointed domestic policy adviser at the start of Mr Bush’s second term.

He often travelled with the President and sat with Laura Bush for the state of the union address a few days before he resigned.

According to police statements, employees at a Target superstore in Washington noticed Mr Allen putting merchandise in a shopping bag. He also had items in a trolley. He allegedly showed a receipt for similar goods to the cashier, said he was returning the items and wanted a refund.

Shop staff have alleged he was reimbursed for the goods he claimed to be returning, and then left the store with other items he had not paid for. He was challenged in the car park.

A police spokesman said an investigation uncovered 25 cases where Mr Allen had allegedly obtained refunds from Target and another store for goods he had not purchased.

“He would buy items, take them out to his car and return to the store with the receipt,” a police statement said. “He would select the same items he had just purchased and then return them for a refund.”

Police said the goods included a home stereo system, clothes, a photo printer and smaller items worth as little as $3.

Mr Allen lives with his wife and four children in a $1.4 million home. His lawyer Mallon Snyder told reporters the incidents were a “series of misunderstandings”.

At the time of his departure Washington insiders speculated that Allen, an evangelical conservative, was leaving because he was unhappy military chaplains were being forced to conduct non-denominational services.

As a health administrator in Virginia he once blocked welfare payments to a rape victim who wanted an abortion. In 2003 Mr Bush nominated Mr Allen as a federal appeals court judge, but he was rejected by Democrats who unearthed an old statement he had once made disparaging “queers”.

(The Sunday Times)