From 2004 to 2006, Rudman led a team of attorneys that investigated accounting practices at
Fannie Mae. Prior to the
September 11 attacks, Rudman had served on a now oft-cited national panel investigating the threat of international terrorism. He, along with fellow former Senator
Gary Hart (D-CO), chaired the panel, and both Rudman and Hart have been lauded since September 11 for their prescient conclusions. Rudman was an Advisory Board member and Co-Chair of the
Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. Rudman was one of the few Jewish politicians elected in New Hampshire. He spent his final years as a resident of
Hollis, New Hampshire, a suburb of
Nashua. He was the author of a memoir called
Combat.
Senate career Rudman defeated incumbent
John Durkin in the
1980 election, riding the wave of
Ronald Reagan's
landslide victory. Durkin resigned and Governor
Hugh Gallen appointed Rudman to fill the vacancy in late December 1980. Rudman, along with
John H. Sununu, was a key player in the appointment of Rudman's personal friend,
Supreme Court Justice
David Souter, to both the
First Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.
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. Then they both sold the judge to President Bush, who wanted above all else to avoid a confirmation battle." Rudman wrote in his memoir that he had "suspected all along" that Souter would not "overturn activist liberal precedents." Sununu later said of Rudman, "In spite of it all, he's a good friend. But I've always known that he was more liberal than he liked the world to think he was." He was twice considered as a possible vice presidential candidate on the ticket of two parties other than the GOP. In 1996,
Ross Perot offered Rudman the slot to be his vice presidential running mate on the
Reform Party ticket, but Rudman refused (as did former Democratic Senator
David Boren of
Oklahoma). Perot eventually selected
Pat Choate. In 2004, Rudman was mentioned as possible running mate for
Democratic nominee
John Kerry. Kerry eventually selected
John Edwards. 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." After the report was disclosed, the Hank family mobilized to rebut the allegations, hiring high-profile lawyers including Rudman. Rudman was an attorney with the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and represented Hank Gonzalez's oldest son,
Carlos Hank Rhon. 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. Carlos Hank Rhon was later fined $40 million to settle charges that he violated banking laws when he bought Laredo National Bancshares in Texas and failed to disclose the sale of a $20 million share in Laredo National to his father. He was a co-chair, along with former Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright and former National Security Advisor
Sandy Berger, of
Albright Stonebridge Group, a global business consulting and strategy firm based in Washington, D.C. He died of lymphoma in Washington on November 19, 2012, only a month after Durkin. In a statement, President
Barack Obama memorialized Rudman as "an early advocate for fiscal responsibility". == See also ==