Obamas Supreme Court Point Man Low-key But Hard
The combination is evident in one of Bauers favorite memories from the 2008 presidential primaries, when Obama campaign aides worried that opposing forces were trying to depress voter turnout. Bauer, the campaigns top lawyer, confidently reassured staffers that hed have anyone engaged in such conduct arrested.
It was a morale-boosting bit of bluster that campaign workers quickly turned into a T-shirt that had “I (heart) Bauer” on the front and his quote – “We may have to arrest people” – splashed across the back.
“I felt, for a moment, like Patton,” Bauer later recalled, invoking the steel-jawed general from World War II. “Not bad.”
Now Bauer, 58, is plying his mix of legal reasoning and tough-guy determination from a West Wing corner office. The White House counsel is leading the search for a Supreme Court nominee and planning how to steer that choice safely through the shoals of Senate confirmation.
Its a job that requires not just legal smarts but equal parts political and media savvy as well.
Thats only part of a bulging portfolio that has the top White House lawyer up at 5 each morning to read the papers, in place at the White House for the 7:30 a.m. senior staff meeting, and poring over paperwork late into the night at home.
Bauer also is trying to help the administration find a way out of its conundrum over what to do with detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, and hes juggling a full slate of other legal issues.
He had a role in muscling the presidents health care overhaul through Congress last month, and now his office will help to fend off legal challenges to the law.
Its a surprisingly expansive role for someone best known for his expertise on campaign finances and elections.
Bauer wrote the book on campaign finance law. Two of them, in fact.
For decades, Bauer has been the go-to lawyer for Democrats looking for advice on campaign matters and ethics questions. Past clients have included the Democratic National Committee, the campaign committees for House and Senate Democrats, congressional Democrats during Bill Clintons impeachment saga, and a freshman senator named Barack Obama.
“We used to joke that we had Bob Bauer on speed dial,” says former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who relied on Bauers advice during the impeachment drama and used him as his personal lawyer for 15 years.
But White House counsels have come from all sorts of legal backgrounds, and theres no predicting which ones will find the job a good fit.
“I was surprised that he took it,” said Joe Birkenstock, a former counsel to the Democratic National Committee who has worked with Bauer over the years. “It can be such a brutal position.”
Bauer, who returned to private practice after the 2008 campaign, was brought to the White House to replace chief counsel Greg Craig. Craig resigned after catching heat for his handling of the administrations clumsy effort to shut Guantanamo.
Now its up to Bauer to present Obama with fresh options on how to close Guantanamo and ensure that the administration can prosecute at least some detainees in U.S. courts. The administration had to backtrack after running into a buzz saw of opposition to its plan to bring avowed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four henchmen to trial in New York City.
“Bauer strikes me as pragmatic, not as ideological,” said Human Rights Watch advocacy director Tom Malinowski, who met with Bauer last month about the detainee issue. “The perception people have of Bob is that he is a bit more of a low-key, honest broker.”