Aide Who Dissed Sasha, Malia Was Arrested as Teen

Comments put Lauten's 'awful teen years' in spotlight
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 2, 2014 2:27 AM CST
Aide Who Dissed Sasha, Malia Was Arrested as Teen
President Obama, joined by his daughters Malia, right, and Sasha, center, speaks at this year's turkey pardon.   (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

The GOP aide who criticized Malia and Sasha Obama for lacking "class" apparently didn't take time to ask herself if her own "awful teen years" would stand up to scrutiny. According to the Smoking Gun, Elizabeth Lauten was arrested for larceny in 2000, when she was 17. Court records show that she was busted for stealing from a department store in her hometown in North Carolina. Since she was a first-time offender, the case was handled under a deferred prosecution program and the charge was eventually dismissed.

Lauten resigned as communications director for Rep. Stephen Fincher after her comments were widely criticized. Even Sean Spicer, communications director for the Republican National Committee, thought she was out of line, the Christian Science Monitor reports. "Children, especially the first daughters, are off limits," he says, calling Lauten's comments "inappropriate and insensitive." He added, however, that the media had piled on excessively and he had never seen any of the "countless inappropriate comments by Democrats" attract the same level of condemnation. (More Sasha Obama stories.)

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