People have a lot of meta-theories for the decline in the White House’s poll numbers and management effectiveness. But perhaps the more straightforward explanation is that with so many senior officials being arrested, it just leads to a breakdown in command and control.
As you may have read this evening, White House domestic policy adviser Claude A. Allen, one of the more surreal players in the Bush White House, was arrested this evening and charged with a bizarre retail fraud scheme in which he would buy items from Target or Hecht’s, deposit them in his car and then return to the store with the receipts. Then he’d grab the identical item off the shelf, head to the return desk and ‘return’ the item for a refund.
Here’s the narrative of Allen’s crimes from the statement of the local police department …
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 Hechtâs 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.
This you’ll remember is the president’s chief advisor on domestic policy issues. Before that President Bush nominated him to be a federal judge.
Actually, one clarification, Allen is the former White House domestic policy adviser. He resigned abruptly one month ago to spend more time with his family, thus, like David Safavian, providing the prescribed Bush administration interval between resignation and arrest.
