Three sources told biographer J. H. Hatfield that Bush was performing community service on the orders of a judge. A Yale classmate said, "George W. was arrested for possession of cocaine in 1972, but due to his father's connections, the entire record was expunged by a state judge whom the older Bush helped get elected. It was one of those 'behind closed doors in the judges' chambers' kind of thing between the old man and one of his Texas cronies who owed him a favor ... There's only a handful of us that know the truth."
If the record of an arrest was expunged, Bush apparently received the equivalent of Youthful Offender status at the age of 26.
Another Bush associate told Hatfield, "I can't and won't give you any new names, but I can confirm that W's Dallas attorney remains the repository of any evidence of the expunged record. From what I've been told, the attorney is the one who advised him to get a new drivers license in 1995 when a survey of his public records uncovered a stale, but nevertheless incriminating trail for an overly eager reporter to follow."
Records prove that Bush did get a new drivers license at that time.
Newsweek (July 9, 2000) reported that the Bush campaign "launched a secretive research operation designed to scour all records relating to his Vietnam-era service" while preparing for Bush's 1998 re-election campaign. They paid Dallas lawyer Harriet Miers $19,000 to review the records.
