Bush staff ordered couple out of speech

DENVER, March 3 (UPI) -- A Bush campaign volunteer has testified that White House staffers ordered two people evicted from a speech by the president in Denver two years ago.

Leslie Weiss and Alex Young said they believed, when Michael Casper forced them to leave, that he was a Secret Service agent. They later learned he was a volunteer at the campaign event, which was open to the public.

Weiss and Young sued to find out who told Casper to throw them out, the Rocky Mountain News reported. In a deposition Friday, Casper he said the order came from two presidential advance men, Steve Atkiss, then deputy director for advance, and Jamie O'Keefe.

Martha Tierney, the lawyer representing the couple, said Atkiss and O'Keefe will be added to the lawsuit.

While Casper said he was told to remove two people with a history of disrupting political events, Weiss and Young say they have no such track record. They said they learned from a Secret Service agent that someone spotted a bumper sticker on their car that said "No blood for oil."