Why Bush Is Eyeing Theodore Olson

If the buzz around Washington is correct, and Theodore Olson is nominated to be the new attorney general, Democrats may rue that they do not have Alberto Gonzales to kick around anymore.

The appointment of Mr. Olson would send a clear signal to Congress that President Bush is not about to go soft during his last 15 months in office. He may have lost a loyal Texan friend in Mr. Gonzales, but the return of Mr. Olson to government would show that the president is determined to maintain his ideological equilibrium.

Senator Hatch, a Republican of Utah, confirmed to the Politico Web site yesterday that the president favors Mr. Olson. "I know they would like to have Olson," Mr. Hatch said. "If they picked Michael Chertoff," the secretary of Homeland Security, "they would have to fill two Cabinet positions, which they don't want to do."

The speculation making the rounds on Capitol Hill suggests that the president is mulling four others to succeed Mr. Gonzales, who tendered his resignation August 27 after charges of undue political influence accompanied his decision to remove a number of United States attorneys.

The four candidates are a former federal prosecutor who was deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, George Terwilliger; a senior circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Laurence Silberman; a former deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush, Larry Thompson, and a former U.S. district chief judge, Michael Mukasey of New York.

The White House counsel, Fred Fielding, is said to have sounded out Senator Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would hold hearings on the appointment.

Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, the Judiciary Committee's leading Republican, also has been consulted and is reported to have made clear his preference for Mr. Olson. Mr. Olson has given campaign donations to Mr. Specter.

The Chicago-born Mr. Olson, 67, a senior partner at the Washington law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who describes himself as "a conservative Republican," is a prominent supporter of and donor to Mayor Giuliani's presidential campaign.

If the president were to press for Mr. Olson to succeed Mr. Gonzales when he steps down from the Justice Department on Monday, he would trigger a heated debate within the Senate Judiciary Committee, as Mr. Olson has been a prominent player in a number of events that have drawn criticism from Democrats.

He began his public legal career in the Justice Department during the Reagan presidency, where close colleagues included Mr. Giuliani, John Roberts, whom Mr. Bush appointed to the Supreme Court as chief justice, and Samuel Alito, also appointed to the court by Mr. Bush.

Mr. Olson was solicitor general between 2001 and 2005, having been approved by the Senate by the narrowest of margins after taking a leading role in Bush v. Gore to cut short the deliberations surrounding the contested presidential election of 2000, halting the Florida recount and awarding Mr. Bush the presidency.

As solicitor general, he took an intimate interest in his department's caseload, personally arguing 26 cases before the Supreme Court and attending nearly all the 180 cases argued.

Mr. Olson led administration arguments dealing with how detainees can be dealt with in the war on terror, defending expanded surveillance powers under the USA Patriot Act and arguing for extensive presidential control over detainees.

He was reported to have been upset at being kept out of the loop when the Office of Legal Counsel was considering "harsh interrogation methods" against detainees.

His consideration of how best legally to deal with those accused of terrorism was made poignant by the fact that his wife Barbara, a Fox News journalist, was killed on American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked by Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, and flown into the Pentagon.

"I was a person inside the administration who felt what many people who lost family members on September 11 felt that day," he told Newsweek. "But you can't be warped in your judgment. When I was arguing before the Supreme Court, I didn't have that picture in my mind. You can't be wrapped up in emotions when you're arguing a case before the Supreme Court."

He married Lady Booth, a Kentucky tax attorney, last year.

Mr. Olson was a sharp critic of Attorney General Janet Reno's move in 1993 to fire all 93 United States attorneys before appointing their successors, which he believed to be politically motivated, an argument that echoes in some respects those surrounding Mr. Gonzales's firing of United States attorneys.

Despite the New York Times journalist William Safire describing Mr. Olson as this generation's "most persuasive advocate" before the Supreme Court and "the most effective" solicitor general in decades, he is certain to attract pointed questioning in the Judiciary Committee, under Mr. Leahy.

When the committee considered his suitability as solicitor general, Mr. Leahy, then representing the Senate's Democratic minority, wrote: "I raised with Mr. Olson my concern that his sharp partisanship over the last several years might not be something that he could leave behind. … I have become concerned that Mr. Olson has not shown a willingness or ability to be sufficiently candid and forthcoming with the Senate. … In addition, I am concerned about other matters in his background."