Claude Allen

Claude Alexander Allen Jr. (born October 11, 1960) is an American attorney who was appointed to be Assistant to the President of the United States for Domestic Policy by George W. Bush.

Allen grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University School of Law.

Claude attended Jesse O. Sanderson High School in Raleigh, North Carolina from 1975 to 1978 where he participated in student government and ran track.

In 1982, Allen graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A.

Allen grew up in a Democratic household, but he took a job after college as press secretary for Bill Cobey, a Republican Congressional candidate in North Carolina.

He switched parties, saying later, in an interview, "I realized after the fact that I agree more with the Republican Party platform, that it talked about independence, that it talked about individual responsibility, individual rights, it talked about the ability to guarantee opportunities, not outcomes."

Allen subsequently began working for Republican Senator Jesse Helms, of North Carolina; he was Helms' campaign spokesman in 1984.

According to NNDB.com, "In 1984, as a press aide to Jesse Helms, Allen told the Greensboro News and Record: 'We could expound on and undertake a campaign against Jim Hunt's connections with the homosexuals, the labor union connection, the radical feminist connection, the socialist connection.'

Subsequent reports claim that Allen's precise words had actually been: 'We could go back and do the same thing with the queers[...]' [Allen then] he called the reporter back and apologized for his choice of words."

From 1985 to 1987, Allen was a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Allen returned to school in 1987.

He began his legal career in 1990 as a clerk for a federal judge, then was an associate with Baker Botts from 1991 to 1995 and the office of the Attorney General of Virginia from 1995 to 1998.

He graduated from Duke University School of Law with a J.D. in 1990.

He also received a Master of Laws Degree from Duke University School of Law.

From 1990 to 1991, Allen was a law clerk for David B. Sentelle, a judge on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, famous for his role in the Whitewater investigation.

Allen met and became a protege of Clarence Thomas, who was a judge on that court at the time Allen was clerking there.

After his clerkship, Allen became an associate at Baker Botts in Washington, D.C., from 1991 to 1995.

He then served in the Virginia Attorney General's Office from 1995 to 1998, before becoming Secretary of Health and Human Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

From 1998 to 2001 Allen served as Secretary of Health and Human Services for the State of Virginia, and then became Deputy Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services under the George W. Bush administration.

In 2001, Allen was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2004, Allen was nominated by President George W. Bush to become a federal judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

His nomination was opposed by numerous educational, religious, and racial groups, including People for the American Way, the NAACP, and the National Organization for Women.

The American Bar Association rated him as partially "not qualified".

Allen was appointed as Assistant to the President in January 2005.

His nomination was stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee and lapsed on December 8, 2005.

Allen was then appointed to the position of Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy in January 2005 where he was responsible for providing advice on all non-economic policy issues including education, health care, labor, housing, veterans, HIV/AIDS, and other domestic issues.

While Head of the Domestic Policy Council, Allen jointly oversaw the White House Task Force that coordinated response to Hurricane Katrina along with the Homeland Security Council.

Allen has said of condom use, "It's like telling your child, 'Don't use the car,' but then leaving the keys in the Lamborghini and saying, 'But if you do, buckle up.'"

Allen is anti-abortion.

Journalist Doug Ireland wrote that when serving as Health and Human Services Commissioner in Virginia, Allen opposed certain legislation because it included taxpayer funding for abortions.

Allen then 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 return fraud.

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.

On August 4, 2006, as part of a plea bargain, Allen pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of theft.

Allen, a native of Philadelphia, grew up in a two-bedroom apartment in a working-class section of northwest Washington, D.C. He attended Archbishop Carroll High School, a Roman Catholic school.

His mother worked part-time at a Catholic school; his father worked for a plumbing supply business.

In a television interview, Allen said "Probably the vast majority of the kids who grew up in our neighborhood were either strung out on drugs or in jail or dead."

Allen was apprehended by Germantown Target store loss prevention manager Pete Schomburg on January 2, 2006.

According to the charging document, Allen "admitted to Agent Schomburg that he was committing fraudulent returns".

Allen has a twin brother named Floyd, who played football and was inducted into the Sanderson Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011.