D.U.I.Gonzales: Did He Help Bush Keep His DUI Quiet? - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com Skip navigation Newsweek Subscribe Now Periscope National News Politics World News International Ed. War in Iraq Business Enterprise Tech & Science Healthbeat Society Education Entertainment Tip Sheet Columnists Letters & Live Talks Multimedia/Photos Search the Site Search Archives U.S. News World News Business Sports Entertainment Tech / Science Health Weather Travel Blogs Etc. Local News Newsweek Multimedia News Video Most Popular NBC NEWS MSNBC TV Today Show Nightly News Meet the Press Dateline NBC Newsweek Home Periscope Gonzales: Did He Help Bush Keep His DUI Quiet? Mannie Garcia / Reuters Did Gonzales (right) get Bush off a DUI jury duty? By By Michael Isikoff Newsweek Jan. 31 issue - Senate Democrats put off a vote on White House counsel Alberto Gonzales's nomination to be attorney general, complaining he had provided evasive answers to questions about torture and the mistreatment of prisoners. But Gonzales's most surprising answer may have come on a different subject: his role in helping President Bush escape jury duty in a drunken-driving case involving a dancer at an Austin strip club in 1996. The judge and other lawyers in the case last week disputed a written account of the matter provided by Gonzales to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It's a complete misrepresentation," said David Wahlberg, lawyer for the dancer, about Gonzales's account. Bush's summons to serve as a juror in the drunken-driving case was, in retrospect, a fateful moment in his political career: by getting excused from jury duty he was able to avoid questions that would have required him to disclose his own 1976 arrest and conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) in Kennebunkport, Maine-an incident that didn't become public until the closing days of the 2000 campaign. (Bush, who had publicly declared his willingness to serve, had left blank on his jury questionnaire whether he had ever been "accused" in a criminal case.) Asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy to describe "in detail" the only court appearance he ever made on behalf of Bush, Gonzales-who was then chief counsel to the Texas governor-wrote that he had accompanied Bush the day he went to court "prepared to serve on a jury." While there, Gonzales wrote, he "observed" the defense lawyer make a motion to strike Bush from the jury panel "to which the prosecutor did not object." Asked by the judge whether he had "any views on this," Gonzales recalled, he said he did not. MOST-POPULAR ARTICLES Are You Working Yourself to Death? A Jesuit Bioethicist on Schiavo's Right to Die -> Catholicism: Inside the Secretive Opus Dei Jesus: The Epic Story of a Great Faith Vote: Should Terri Schiavo have the right to die? While Gonzales's account tracks with the official court transcript, it leaves out a key part of what happened that day, according to Travis County Judge David Crain. In separate interviews, Crain-along with Wahlberg and prosecutor John Lastovica-told NEWSWEEK that, before the case began, Gonzales asked to have an off-the-record conference in the judge's chambers. Gonzales then asked Crain to "consider" striking Bush from the jury, making the novel "conflict of interest" argument that the Texas governor might one day be asked to pardon the defendant (who worked at an Austin nightclub called Sugar's), the judge said. "He [Gonzales] raised the issue," Crain said. Crain said he found Gonzales's argument surprising, since it was "extremely unlikely" that a drunken-driving conviction would ever lead to a pardon petition to Bush. But "out of deference" to the governor, Crain said, the other lawyers went along. Wahlberg said he agreed to make the motion striking Bush because he didn't want the hard-line governor on his jury anyway. But there was little doubt among the participants as to what was going on. "In public, they were making a big show of how he was prepared to serve," said Crain. "In the back room, they were trying to get him off." Gonzales last week refused to waver. "Judge Gonzales has no recollection of requesting a meeting in chambers," a senior White House official said, adding that while Gonzales did recall that Bush's potential conflict was "discussed," he never "requested" that Bush be excused. "His answer to the Senate's question is accurate," the official said. 2006 Newsweek, Inc. 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