• C. Boyden Gray, a legal adviser to every Republican president since Ronald Reagan, died on Sunday at his home in  Washington. He was 80. His daughter said the cause was heart failure.
• Active in conservative politics to the end, Gray’s influence stretched beyond any particular job. Unlike other Washington conservatives of his generation, he kept in line with shifts in the political direction of the Republican Party.
• He was former President George H.W. Bush’s legal adviser inside the White House and had influential impacts on several Supreme Court and Justice picks.
• The New York Times, for example, noted that he promoted the careers of promising young conservative lawyers — including the two-time attorney general William P. Barr and the future Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito — and he facilitated the appointments of the two men Mr. Bush put on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas and David Souter.

Tagged: Politics