We all know the famous DUI story: in 1976, at the age of 30, George W. Bush was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine for drunk driving. He pleaded guilty, paid a $150 fine, and got his license suspended.
In 1998, a journalist asked Bush if he had ever been arrested for anything other than stealing a Christmas wreath as a college student (I assume this was some frat house prank). Bush's answer was no -- a clear and definite lie.
A couple years earlier in 1996, then Governor Bush was called to serve jury duty. Here's what James Moore and Wayne Slater write:
Bush and his general counsel, Alberto Gonzales, took steps to keep the episode secret. Publicly, the governor pronounced himself eager to fulfill his obligation of citizenship by serving on a jury. Privately, Gonzales met in chambers with the judge and the attorney for the accused and urged that Bush be stricken from the jury pool. The case involved a drunken-driving charge and the defense attorney in the case said he was eager to question the governor under oath about his "young and irresponsible" years. Gonzales moved quickly to head off such a prospect.
In chambers, Gonzales raised an ingenious legal argument: putting Bush on the jury would be a conflict of interest. Governors, he argued, should not be deciding the fate of people in legal cases in which they might eventually be called on to consider pardons. The judge agreed and dismissed Bush from jury duty.
Even with the judge's action, some evidence of Bush's 1976 arrest still might have become public had the governor completely filled out a questionnaire required of potential jurors. The document asked "Have you ever been accused, or a complainant, or a witness in a criminal case?" The space was left blank. A spokesperson said later that an aide had filled out the document and didn't know the answer. Whatever the reason, the episode remained secret.
(Source: "Bush's Brain" by James Moore and Wayne Slater, p.278)
It seems quite likely that attorney Gonzales instructed his client to purposely lie on the juror questionnaire. So does a guy who tells his client to obscure the truth on a legal document qualified to become the top law enforcement official in the country?