Md. man charged with hatchet killing; suspect is son of former Bush White House official

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post, Associated Press

By Associated Press, Associated Press May 24, 2013 05:17 PM EDT
AP
Updated: Friday, May 24, 1:17 PM

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — The 20-year-old son of a former aide to President George W. Bush was charged in a Washington, D.C., suburb on Friday, accused by police of killing a man with a hatchet.

Claude Alexander Allen III, of Gaithersburg, was arrested by Montgomery County police and online court records show he’s been charged with first-degree murder.
....

The elder Allen was a former domestic policy adviser in the Bush White House. He resigned in 2006 after being arrested for shoplifting at a Target store in Gaithersburg. He pleaded guilty to theft that same year, effectively ending a once-promising political career, and was fined and placed on probation.

He told the judge at his sentencing hearing that he had lost perspective while working long hours and getting little sleep in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
....

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-man-charged-with-hatchet-killing-suspect-is-son-of-former-bush-white-house-official/2013/05/24/3bf352f8-c487-11e2-9642-a56177f1cdf7_story.html

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First off: I understand that the kids of politicians are off-limits at DU. We pay attention to what the pols do and leave the kids alone.

The hook was that name. Why did it sound so familiar? Then I kept reading. The father of the arrested person has made previous appearances at DU:

Senior Administration Official Resigns (Claude Allen)

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/02/senior_administ.html

Senior Administration Official Resigns

Claude Allen, President Bush's principle domestic policy adviser, has resigned. A White House spokesman told the Chicago Tribune that Allen wanted to spend more time with his family.

Republicans who know Allen are uncertain why he stepped down so suddenly. Late last week, he was in good spirits as he briefed allies and surrogates about the President's State of the Union message. On Tuesday, he attended a conference in PA on the president's faith based initiative.

Allen enjoys a warm relationship with moral conservative groups in Washington. As a senior political appointee at the Department of Health and Human services, he was the administration's point person on abstinence initiatives.

Allen, who is black, began his political career in North Carolina, working for Sen. Jesse Helms. In '03, Pres. Bush nominated Allen to be a federal appeals judge, but Democrats blocked a final vote.

Note: As I was adding my comments to explain why I started the thread, alp227 posted his response.

Video: Gaithersburg Man In Custody After Homicide Using Hatchet

[alp227]

1. his dad is Claude Allen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Allen

...was the Assistant to the President of the United States for Domestic Policy in George W. Bush's White House and a withdrawn Bush judicial nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit...The African-American Republican was appointed to his White House position in January 2005. Allen resigned February 9, 2006, stating he wanted to spend more time with his family. On March 10, 2006, news broke that Allen had been repeatedly stealing from retail stores Target and Hecht's by engaging in a personal refund scheme. Allen was cited by police for shoplifting on January 2, 2006, which triggered an investigation that resulted in Allen's arrest on felony counts of theft on March 9, 2006.[2] On August 4, 2006, as part of a plea bargain, Allen pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of theft.[3]

Wow...like father, like son. And this guy is supposedly an evangelical Christian?????

[KamaAina]

2. Son of a Bushie!

[starroute]

3. I put together some notes on the elder Claude Allen when he got into trouble

After graduating from from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1982, Allen went to work for Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), serving as press secretary for Helms' 1984 re-election campaign.

In August 1985, the Wall Street Journal published an article (which is apparently no longer online) on the Maranatha Christian Church, a conservative religious group focused on college students which was considered a cult by many parents and also by other denominations. It mentioned Allen, saying, "Mr. {Morton} Blackwell, a longtime conservative activist, currently holds intensive, two-day seminars to teach conservative young people how to become political organizers. So far, he says, about 10% of the 400 people who have gone through the seminars have been members of Maranatha. One of them, Claude Allen, directed young volunteers for the successful 1984 campaign to reelect GOP Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina."

After the 1984 election, Allen moved to Washington, DC, where he worked as deputy director and press secretary for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Helms until 1987. Helms was then serving as chairman of the editorial advisory board for the International Freedom Foundation, a group which Jack Abramoff founded in 1985 to promote the South African regime and which was later revealed to have been secretly funded by that regime.

African-American conservative Alan Keyes was also an IFF member. In 1984, Keyes had founded Black PAC, the objectives of which were to work for Jesse Helms' re-election and to oppose the African National Congress. The treasurer of Black PAC, Jay A. Parker, was closely associated then with Clarence Thomas, who served in the Reagan administration as an Assistant Secretary of Education. Their relationship had come under question in 1981, when Parker was a registered agent for one of the South African bantustans and was lobbying the Department of Education on behalf of his client.

After Allen graduatedfrom law school in 1990 and became a law clerk for a judge on the Washington DC court of appeals, he is said to have developed a close relationship with Thomas, which continued after Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court in 1991.

[magellan]

4. Dog save us from moral conservatives and their offspring. n/t

[BainsBane]

5. He commits a murder, he's not off limits

[xtraxritical]

6. A person of color working for Jesse Helms must be crazy.

[SummerSnow]

7. Jesse Helms ....veteran racist..old school racist.

[alp227]

8. AND defending the South Africa Apartheid regime! N/t

[gopiscrap]

9. Typical republican they're all like that!!!

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. More Republican hatchet jobs, you mean?

[progressoid]

10. 20 yr old? He's not a kid.