Word: souter
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...swiftness with which Souter was named -- less than 72 hours after Brennan's resignation -- was almost as surprising as the nominee himself. "The President saw immediately that he needed to move quickly," says a senior White House official. "Otherwise, the interest groups were going to take control of the debate, narrow his options and make confirmation more difficult." Bush was on Air Force One, preparing to head back to Washington after a few days of politics and fishing out west, when he got the news that Brennan was stepping down. After calling Brennan to accept his resignation, Bush...
...Sununu, Vice President Dan Quayle, White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray and Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, looking over dossiers on about a dozen possibilities whom the Administration had singled out over the past 18 months. Sununu held back during the discussions, letting Gray and Thornburgh make the case for Souter. After the group had narrowed the list to about eight candidates, Bush asked for further specifics on several of them, then retired to Camp David for the weekend. Sununu went to work behind the scenes on Souter's behalf...
...first step was to phone Republican Senator Warren Rudman, a fellow Granite Stater who is among Souter's closest friends. According to Rudman, Sununu told him he was "trying to keep a low profile" on the nomination. He asked the Senator to fax to Washington a letter on the judge's behalf. It was included in materials delivered to Bush at Camp David...
...Sunday Bush narrowed the field to five. They included Souter, Jones, Solicitor General Kenneth Starr and two judges on the federal appeals court in Washington -- Lawrence Silberman, who two weeks ago joined in a ruling that threw out one of Oliver North's convictions in the Iran-contra scandal, and Clarence Thomas, the black former chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Not having met Jones and Souter, the President asked to have them invited to Washington...
...After Souter was contacted at his office in Concord, he made three calls in quick succession to Rudman. The first was to tell Rudman the news. Then Souter quickly phoned again, inquiring whether it was possible to fly to Washington directly from Manchester, N.H. ("This is not a guy who travels a lot," says Rudman.) Souter called a third time to add that at the White House he would not discuss how he might rule in future cases. "They ought to know that beforehand," Souter insisted. "It might save all of us a lot of time...