Claude Allen's 'evil twin' is the crook? - Talking Points Memo

[Algorem]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007891.php

(March 13, 2006 -- 11:51 PM EDT)
Oh, now this is just too weird.

As you know, we've been following the bizarre case of Claude Allen, former top advisor to President Bush who was arrested a few days ago and booked and charges stemming from a lengthy shoplifting spree.

Now, here late this evening I got an email from TPM Reader WH who directed my attention to today's All Things Considered on NPR in which Michele Norris interviews Michael Fletcher, a reporter with the Post who's been covering the story.

Now, right at about 1:40 into the interview comes this exchange ...

Norris: We should note something, Michael. Apparently Claude Allen has a twin brother? ...




...People who talked to Mr. Allen Monday said he remained surprisingly upbeat in the face of the charges. He said only one side of the story had been heard, said one former colleague who asked not to be identified because the conversation was private...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/politics/14allen.html?ei=5094&en=942ca7d29a427eec&hp=&ex=1142398800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print


...According to the AP, police documents say Allen admitted to the wrongdoing. But Allen's lawyer insists that it's just a misunderstanding. Okay, maybe so, maybe not... except that it turns out Allen has an identical twin brother, Floyd, who's had brushes with the law in the past. Claude is described repeatedly as the most goody-two-shoes kinda guy you'd ever met. Check out this New York Times piece from this morning that seems to imply that maybe the evil twin theory is correct.

And Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo today has pictures of the twins and asks, who will put down 50 bucks on the evil twin theory.

I'll take that bet, Joshua...

9:35 a.m. EST | 3-14-2006 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5251026

[Sanity Claws]

1. LOL

Poor Claude! I think he's been reading too much pulp fiction.
Well, now that he has brought out the evil twin defense, do you think we'll hear an amnesia defense soon?

[bigscott]

2. Oh jesus christ on a stick

that is so elementary school - i blamed my brother for everything and it never worked. But my Mother is WAY smarter than the MSM

[Retrograde]

16. my twin sisters assure me

that one of every pair of twins is evil. (They claim to take turns being the "evil twin"). They haven't actually tried to seriously use this as an excuse since they were about 5, though.

(do I really need smileys here? Can the Bush crew get any more comical?)

[RufusEarl]

3. They booked Allen when they arrested him right?

If they booked him they finger printed his ass, so unless his twin brother has the same finger prints he's screwed.

[Sanity Claws]

15. What about the car?

I understand that he put the paid items in his car and then he went into the store with his receipts, put new pieces of the same items in the bag, and tried to return them for cash.
If that is what happened, then the police noted the vehicle involved too. Who owns the vehicle? Pretty hard for Claude to say that Floyd did it, if Claude's car was involved.

[BrainRants]

4. And why did brother have his credit cards?

Claude MUST answer this question also.

Why didn't he come right out and say his bro stole his cards and be done with it?

[grasswire]

5. why did he resign if his brother did the crime?

Makes no sense at all.

[KoKo]

6. That was my question after reading Josh's post. I had trouble

understanding whether Josh believed this or not. Sometimes Josh is inscrutable...or maybe I don't get his humor.

Seems this would have all been cleared up if it was Allen's evil twin...and he wouldn't have had to resign. But, Josh thinks the story is so bizarre it just might be true? Or Not. :shrug:

[Janice325]

7. That wouldn't really surprise me if he had a twin brother.

I am in no way defending what apparently happened, but does anyone remember those two guys in "American Idol?" I think their first names were Terrell and Derrell, they were twin brothers, and they had a lot of odd stuff going on in their background.
Of course, no one should really be surprised what goes on in Bushie's administration anyway. :cry: :banghead:

[Senator]

8. Heck with the facts, this makes it even "FauxNews-Worthy"

Any chance the evil twin brother also stole trips to Aruba with blond, white high school girls?

Is he sleeping with Claude's wife? Harriet? Condi? The Twins?!?

Even enquiring freepers will be obsessed with this (as long as it's a woman or minority on the hot seat).

This could be quite a news albatross.

--
www.january6th.org

[rustydog]

9. Fingerprint Claude..check return receipts at the stores for

Claude's fingerprints. End of sory...defense strategy shot down like a Cheny hunting partner.

[mitchum]

10. I heard Fletcher float the ludicrous bad twin theory...

during an NPR interview last evening. He also danced around the NPR reporter's question about Allen's policy role in the bush WH. NOT a word about him being a theocratic policy presence. Not a word.

[Marr]

11. Golly! This Bush crowd is just a magnet for crazy coincidences!

It's so weird that the most morally pure group to ever hold power- Hell, I can't think of a single thing they've done wrong, to hear them tell it- is also beset on all sides by insanely unlikely circumstances that make them look bad!

It's just so wow!

[0007]

14. ....and his friends have a lot to be desired

Jesse Helms? A protégé of Justice Clarence (Long Dong Silver) Thomas and good friends with Armstrong Williams??

Eventually an adviser to the president?

What aren't they telling us about this story? 'Tis extremely very doubtful and uncertain and stinks to high heaven.

[Algorem]

12. a hot dog made him lose control?

or does that only happen with identical cousins?

[mike_c]

13. yeah but....

Something about this whole Claude Allen story stinks. I mean, the guy makes $160,000 at the WH, and the fraudulent transactions he's accused of are way petty-- one refund was evidently for $2.50! He's apparently a real smart guy, yet this scheme is GUARANTEED to get busted if repeated more than a few times in the same community. And his original arrest at Target was because he "shoplifted" a few small items during the refund scam, i.e. he didn't return some of the things he picked up off the shelf but rather left the store with them still in his bag.

He evidently DOES have an identical twin brother. On that NPR interview with another Washington journalist the brother was described as "indistinguishable" even by long-time friends, although those were the journalist's words, and in fairness might have been planted via a lawyer.

Still, the whole story seems hinky as hell.

[Algorem]

17. won't float

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Ex_Bush_Aide.html

Tuesday, March 14, 2006 · Last updated 9:01 a.m. PT

Police: Former Bush aide admitted theft

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- A former top White House aide who was arrested on a theft charge admitted to a store investigator he fraudulently returned merchandise that he didn't buy, according to charging documents.

Police allege that Claude Allen, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bush, made fraudulent returns worth at least $5,000 at Target and other stores in the Washington suburbs on 25 different occasions.

Target Corp. investigator Pete Schomburg said he stopped Allen on Jan. 2 outside the company's Gaithersburg store after Allen allegedly received a refund for items using a receipt from an earlier purchase.

"Allen had receipts from previous purchases at Target stores and admitted to Agent Schomburg that he was committing fraudulent returns," according to the charging documents filed March 7, two days before Allen was charged with theft and theft scheme...

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/gray200407070947.asp

July 07, 2004, 9:47 a.m.
Claude Allen & His Enemies
Understanding the judge fights.

By C. Boyden Gray

In April 2003, President Bush announced his intention to nominate Claude Alexander Allen to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which reaches from Virginia to South Carolina. Sixteen months later, as with so many of the president's other nominees — courtesy of Senate Democrats — Allen is still waiting.

The opposition to Allen is directed by left-wing interest groups, from where Senate Democrats increasingly take their marching orders. The National Organization for Women, for instance, has hit upon a most remarkable basis for opposing Allen: "Allen's three children are home-schooled." Never mind the fact that centuries of American children have been so educated; never mind the fact that our Founding Fathers mostly learned at the knees of their parents. In this day and age, apparently, children not educated in state-run, union staffed, federally subsidized schools are a basis for suspicion.

Or, take the self-proclaimed Alliance for Justice, whose mission is to keep the federal bench safe from Republican appointees. Their great criticism of Allen is that he has worked to advance an "abstinence-only-until-marriage agenda." Therefore, in their words: "Everything about Allen's record suggests that...he would be unable to separate his personal extremist views from what the law requires."...

Claude Allen promises not to advance a political agenda from the federal bench he has been nominated to, but to be the type of judge who buttresses the foundation of American government — by applying the rule of law however he finds it. President Bush, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, could do much worse than Allen. By the grace of democratic principles overriding a minority in the Senate, let us hope they do not have to.

— Former White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray is chairman of the Committee for Justice.

* * *