He was just 37 years old when the first president Bush tapped him for the bench, the youngest federal appeals judge in the country, but already a veteran of the political world. His specialty: screening and prepping the Supreme Court nominees of Republican presidents. His home served as the “safe-house” lodging for future justice David Souter, the night before Bush interviewed him for the job in 1990. After Clarence Thomas’s 1991 nomination was imperiled by sexual harassment allegations, Lutt...