Warren Rudman

Warren Bruce Rudman (May 18, 1930 – November 19, 2012) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States Senator from New Hampshire from 1980 to 1993.

degree from Boston College Law School in 1960, and was appointed Attorney General of New Hampshire in 1970; serving in that capacity until 1976.

Prior to the September 11 attacks, Rudman had served on a now oft-cited national panel investigating the threat of international terrorism.

Rudman defeated incumbent John Durkin in the 1980 election, riding the wave of Ronald Reagan's landslide victory.

A moderate Republican, Rudman was conservative on matters of fiscal and defense policy—favoring tax cuts, reduced domestic spending, and higher military spending, but liberal on social issues—supporting a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, gay rights, and opposing a constitutional amendment mandating voluntary school prayer.

The Wall Street Journal later editorialized about the appointment, saying: "Rudman, the man who helped put liberal jurist David Souter on the high court" and who in his "Yankee Republican liberalism" took "pride in recounting how he sold Mr. Souter to gullible White House chief of staff John Sununu as a confirmable conservative.

In 1999, a leaked report by the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) stated that Carlos Hank González, a Mexican criminal, politician and influential businessman, and his two sons are so involved in drug trafficking and money laundering that they "pose a significant criminal threat to the United States.

"[13] After the report was disclosed, the Hank family mobilized to rebut the allegations, hiring high-profile lawyers including Rudman.

[15] Rudman lobbied the government to disavow the report and in March 2000 Attorney General Janet Reno wrote a letter that said the report "was beyond the substantive expertise and area of responsibility of the NDIC.″ At Rudman's request, a copy of Reno's letter was sent to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan because of the Hank family's banking interests in the United States.

Rudman on the Senate floor, 1986