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Claude Allen

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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. 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. 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.

Allen was appointed as Assistant to the President in January 2005. 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." Claude attended Jesse O. Sanderson High School in Raleigh, North Carolina from 1975 to 1978 where he participated in student government and ran track.[citation needed]

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

Allen subsequently began working for Republican Senator Jesse Helms, of North Carolina; he was Helms' campaign spokesman in 1984. From 1985 to 1987, Allen was a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.[citation needed]

Allen returned to school in 1987. 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.

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