It’s been about four years since people were engaged on this story, so indulge me for a moment as I offer a quick review…
Then-governor George W. Bush was called for jury duty in October 1996. Bush and his aides turned it into a minor public relations opportunity, showing how Bush was prepared to do his duty. He smiled for the cameras, shook a bunch of hands, and said he didn’t like it when others used “feeble excuses” to get out of their civic responsibilities.
Bush was assigned to a drunk-driving case and was given a questionnaire that asked all prospective jurors about previous convictions. Bush’s form left one answer blank — the one about previous criminal convictions. He didn’t want to lie on the form, but he definitely didn’t want to tell the truth either. (He did, however, lie to a Dallas Morning News reporter who asked Bush at the time if he’d ever had a DUI. Bush said, “No,” when the truth, we later learned, was he had.)
Bush’s lawyer, Alberto Gonzales — who was Bush’s general counsel in Texas and now is poised to become our next attorney general — quickly sought to get Bush out of the case after learning what it was about. He used a bizarre argument: Bush faced a conflict of interest because, as governor, he might be in a position of granting the accused a pardon in the future. The judge went along, Bush was excused, and the truth about Bush’s previous convictions was held secret a while longer.
Now that Gonzales may replace John Ashcroft as the nation’s highest law enforcement official, the whole mess is coming back into relevance. More importantly, new facts are coming to light that raise questions about Gonzales’ role in the story.
After his confirmation hearings, Gonzales followed up in writing to senators’ questions on several issues, including this one (raised by Sen. Patrick Leahy).
Gonzales 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.
That sounds pretty straightforward — right up until one learns that those involved with the case are saying that Gonzales is lying.
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.
[…]
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.”
All of this may seem irrelevant now. It was a 1996 case, Bush lied to a reporter but didn’t lie on his juror questionnaire, and voters have already elected Bush, despite him being the top of the only ticket in American presidential history to feature two candidates with criminal records (Cheney was also busted for DUI). Does any of this matter now? It does because it directly speaks to Gonzales’ integrity, honesty, and independence.
* Is Gonzales lying about his efforts on Bush’s behalf during the DUI case?
* Would Gonzales’ deception to a senator’s question, in writing, disqualify him for attorney general?
* If Gonzales misled court officials in the 1996 case to help keep Bush’s criminal record secret, would it amount to an obstruction of justice?
* Bush later claimed that he asked an “aide” to answer his juror questionnaire for him. Was Gonzales involved with this?
* Were any of Gonzales’ efforts in this matter consistent with his responsibilities as general counsel to the governor or Texas?
* At this point, Gonzales is sticking to his story, which leads to another question: why would Crain, Wahlberg, and Lastovica lie about all of this now?
Senate Dems are going to follow up on this. I’m not getting my hopes up, but this story has plenty of up-side.