Bush Volunteer: Staff Ordered 3 Ousted

DENVER - A volunteer said Friday he was acting on orders from White House staffers when he helped eject three people from a taxpayer-funded event President Bush was attending, according to the man's attorney.

The volunteer, Michael Casper, said in a deposition that two White House employees told him to throw out the three after Casper saw them behaving suspiciously, attorney Sean Gallagher said.

Gallagher was present for Casper's deposition in a federal lawsuit brought by Leslie Weise and Alex Young, two of the three people who were thrown out. They claim they were told to leave because of their political views, and that the White House had a policy of ejecting dissenters from the president's appearances.

Gallagher said the two people Casper named were Steve Atkiss, the White House deputy director for travel, and Jamie O'Keefe, the White House's lead advance staffer for the 2005 event.

White House spokesman Blair Jones said he could not comment on pending litigation.

Bush spoke at the 2005 event to promote his proposal to revamp Social Security.

The plaintiffs said they arrived in a car with a bumper sticker reading "No blood for oil" and had T-shirts saying "Stop the lies" under their clothes but did not show them.

The lawsuit names Casper and Jay Bob Klinkerman, who were both volunteers with the event's host committee. Klinkerman, former chairman of the Colorado Federation of Young Republicans, also gave a deposition Friday.

His attorney, John Zakhem, said his client had little involvement in running the event and couldn't identify any officials who might have issued directives.

Martha Tierney, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the plaintiffs, said Atkiss and O'Keefe would be added as defendants.

The original lawsuit said Young and Weise believed Casper was a Secret Service agent because he wore a radio earpiece, a dark suit and a lapel pin that gave the appearance of authority.

A Secret Service investigation into allegations that Casper was impersonating one of its agents determined he was a staff member with the host committee, and federal prosecutors declined to press charges.