Ethics within the Republican Party just continues to get worse.We thought it may end with the Arbramoff, Delay, and Cunningham scandals. Boy how we were wrong.
Katherine Harris is involved in a bribery scandal. And now a former top advisor to President Bush has admitted to fraud and has been arrested.
CNN has more:
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 January 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.
Allen's lawyer, Mallon Snyder, has denied the charges, saying they are a result of problems with Allen's credit cards. Snyder said Tuesday he did not have any comment on the charging documents, first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post.
Allen, 45, is scheduled to go on trial April 27.
Police initially charged Allen with a misdemeanor, a charge that was dropped Thursday when he appeared in court. Later that day, however, he was arrested and charged with the more serious charges of theft and theft scheme over $500. Each count carries a possible prison sentence of 15 years.
Allen resigned in February from the $161,000-a-year job, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family. The alleged crimes occurred while he was working at the White House.
White House officials said Allen notified chief of staff Andy Card the night of the January 2 incident but told Card it was a misunderstanding. Bush was informed of the incident and Allen's planned departure in February. On Saturday, Bush said it would be "deeply disappointing" if Allen had not told the White House the truth about what happened.
According to authorities, Allen would buy items and take them to his car, then return to the store, pick up identical items from store shelves and take them to the return desk, presenting his original receipt.
Once again, it is time to clean up Washington.
That will start by passing an ethics bill that get tough.
However, I doubt that will happen since John Boehner (who has already said he is against ethics reform) is now the new Majroity Leader in the House.
Congress should follow the lead of Congressman Ford and restore the publics trust by passing a meaningful ethics reform bill.
Read about Congressman Ford's actions on ethics reform here! (1 , 2, 3)
Read about John Boehner's views opposing ethics reform here!
Read about John Boehner's broken promises regarding ethics reform here!
