Theodore Olsen

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Theodore Bevry Olson (born September 11, 1940) is a former United States Solicitor General, serving from June 2001 to July 2004 under President George W. Bush.

Early life
Theodore Olson was born in Chicago and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in Mountain View, California. He graduated from Los Altos High in 1958, completed his undergraduate degree at the University of the Pacific, and a law degree at Boalt Hall.

Legal career
Olson practiced law first as an associate and then as a partner in the Los Angeles, California office of the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. He then served as an Assistant Attorney General (Office of Legal Counsel) in the Reagan administration before returning to private practice as a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of his former law firm. While serving in the Reagan administration, Olson defended President Reagan during the Iran-Contra affair.

Olson represented convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard while he was in private practice. In Pollard's appeal to United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Olson argued the life sentence Pollard received was in violation of the plea bargain agreement, which had specifically excluded a life sentence. Olson also argued that the violation of the plea bargain was grounds for a mistrial. The Court of Appeals ruled (2-1) that no grounds for mistrial existed.

Olson argued a dozen cases before the Supreme Court prior to becoming Solicitor General; In one case, he argued against federal sentencing guidelines, and in a case in New York state, he defended a member of the press who had first leaked the Anita Hill story. Olson successfully represented presidential candidate George W. Bush in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore, which effectively ended the recount of the contested 2000 Presidential election.

Olson was nominated for the office of Solicitor General by President Bush on February 14, 2001, was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 24, 2001, and took office on June 11, 2001. In July 2004, Olson retired as Solicitor General and returned to private practice at the Washington office of Gibson Dunn.

In 2006, Olson represented a defendant journalist in the civil case filed by Wen Ho Lee and pursued the appeal to the Supreme Court. Lee sued the federal government to discover which public officials had named him as a suspect to journalists before he had been charged. Olson wrote a brief on behalf of one of the journalists involved in the case, saying that journalists should not have to identify confidential sources over to the court, even if subpoenaed.

In 2009, Olson joined with David Boies, his adversary in Bush v. Gore, to bring a federal lawsuit Perry v. Schwarzenegger challenging Proposition 8, a California state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. His work on the lawsuit earned him a place among the Time 100's greatest thinkers.

Personal life
Olson has been married four times. Olson's third wife, Barbara Olson, was a passenger on the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the E Ring of the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The following year Olson met Lady Booth, a tax attorney and native of Kentucky, and the two were married on October 21, 2006, in Napa County, California.

Politics
Olson was present at the first meeting of the Federalist Society. He has served on the board of directors of American Spectator magazine. Olson was a prominent critic of Bill Clinton's presidency, and he helped prepare the attorneys of Paula Jones prior to their Supreme Court appearance. Olson's wife, Lady, has described herself as a lifelong registered Democrat. She has contributed to the campaigns of Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani. Olson served Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign as judicial committee chairman. Olson claims there is a constitutional right for same-sex marriage.

Executive appointment speculation
Prior to President Bush's nomination of D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John Roberts, Olson was considered a potential nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's post. Following the withdrawal of Harriet Miers' nomination for that post, and prior to the nomination of Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Alito, Olson's name was again mentioned as a possible nominee.

In September 2007, Olson was considered by the Bush administration for the post of Attorney General to succeed Alberto Gonzales. However, the Democratic response was so strongly negative that Bush chose to nominate Michael Mukasey instead.