- Originally published in Newsweek on January 31, 2005
By Michael Isikoff
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.
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.