If ever there were confirmation of the idea that, for any White House, when things go badly, they go badly, it is the arrest of former domestic policy chief Claude Allen. It seems guaranteed that Monday’s press briefing will bring lots of questions about not only the shoplifting charges against Allen — which White House officials will no doubt deflect to the local police — but about the White House’s public statements in the case.
We know now that Montgomery County Police contacted the White House in January with some sort of inquiry about Allen. The issue reached the highest levels of the White House staff, and Allen discussed it with chief of staff Andrew Card and counsel Harriet Miers. He reportedly told them that it was just some sort of misunderstanding involving his credit card.
Right now, it is not clear whether the president knew about the problem at the time, but Bush said on Saturday that, “If the allegations are true, Claude Allen did not tell my chief of staff and legal counsel the truth, and that’s deeply disappointing.”
Of course it is reasonable to believe that Allen, if the charges against him are true, might well have lied about it to his employers. But White House officials surely must have put two and two together when, a few weeks after the call from Montgomery County Police, Allen suddenly resigned. So why, then, did the White House claim so confidently that Allen simply wanted to spend more time with his family? The following is from the White House briefing of February 9:
Q: Are you going to release Claude’s resignation letter to us?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I expect we will.
Q: And does it say effective when?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think he’s still working that out with Andy Card and others.
Q: A Wednesday night seems like a rather sudden time to resign. Is there anything you want to add, because –
MR. McCLELLAN: Wednesday night?
Q: Last night. To resign. Is there anything you want to add –
MR. McCLELLAN: Wednesday night?
Q: Last night.
MR. McCLELLAN: This — first of all, as I indicated, we’re all going to miss him here at the White House. Claude served for four years as Deputy Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, and he’s been serving here for the last year. He’s put in a lot of long hours during that time, and I think you’ll see reflected in his letter he has a family; he wants to be able to spend more time with them. And we’re all going to miss him here. But we wish him the best, and fully understand the decision that he made. But it’s something he’s been looking at for — I don’t know — the last several weeks, I think, or the last few weeks, at least. And he’s been talking about when would be a good time to do this. And I think he wanted to make sure we got through the State of the Union and this would be a good time to transition.
Given that, more questions seem inevitable.