Bush Strongly Backs Sununu, Tells of Apology : White House: The President says that, in heart-to-heart talks, chief of staff expressed regret about controversy over his travel arrangements.

WASHINGTON —  President Bush on Monday strongly defended White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, saying that the former governor has apologized for the controversy over his private travel and that he still has confidence in him.

“He’d told me right from the heart that he regretted very much any controversy and anything that might have been done to diminish the ethical standards of this presidency,” Bush told reporters in Kennebunkport, Me. “I told him, ‘Look, I understand this.’ Very candidly, no laws having been violated, I think we ought to move on to something more important.”

At a press conference called to announce Bush’s nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, the President said that he and Sununu “had a good heart-to-heart talk--more than one--about it . . . . I think John said, ‘If mistakes were made, I made them.’

“And what more can a man say?” Bush added.

As Sununu stood nearby on the lawn of Bush’s summer home, the President said that a reporter’s question about the apology “gives me the occasion to express my confidence in him . . . . I respect him. I value his advice and counsel.”

The former New Hampshire governor has been under fire since April over his personal travel, including his use of military jets to go skiing and to his dentist, and for flying on corporate planes. Last week, after a disclosure that Sununu had solicited use of such a jet, the White House tightened travel rules to require personnel to get approval from White House counsel C. Boyden Gray before using corporate transportation.

Bush said that Sununu had also met with members of the White House staff to apologize for any embarrassment that the travel controversy may have caused.

Bush said that his heart “aches” for Sununu’s family, “because they’ve been through a lot . . . kind of what I call the piling-on syndrome.”

“I’d like to try to clear the air, get it behind us and move on,” Bush said.

The President’s support for his embattled aide was made in far more forceful terms than Bush used only last week. On June 24, on leaving a Rose Garden ceremony, the President said in response to a reporter’s question, “Yeah, I’m going to support him.”

Amid reports that Gray, Vice President Dan Quayle and other Administration aides were angry with Sununu, there was speculation that the chief of staff might be on the way out in the months ahead. But Bush’s staunch defense Monday hints otherwise.

Sununu has said that he plans to serve into Bush’s second term.

Last month, he issued a statement regretting the “appearance of impropriety” that his travel may have caused and acknowledging that he had blundered. “Obviously, some mistakes were made . . . . Certainly my own mistakes contributed to this controversy.”