U.S. Supreme Court

Book: Souter Distraught Over Bush v. Gore

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter was distraught over what he viewed as a partisan decision by a majority of his colleagues in Bush v. Gore and considered stepping down from his seat on the bench of the nation’s highest court over the ruling.

That is what an upcoming book by CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says, according to media reports apparently based on bloggers’ accounts of the book, which is to be released later this month. (It is titled The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.) Among the news outlets discussing the claim that Souter was disillusioned by the 5-4 decision in 2000 that put George W. Bush in office as U.S. president are the New Hampshire Union Leader and Wall Street Journal Law Blog.

However, Warren Rudman, a former U.S. senator from New Hampshire who is a close friend of Souter’s, reportedly says the book’s depiction of Souter’s reaction to Bush v. Gore is “absolutely false.”

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