washingtonpost.com – Abner J. Mikva, a liberal titan of law and politics who served as a U.S. congressman from Illinois, a federal judge in Washington and White House counsel to President Bill Clinton, and who was an early mentor to future president Barack Obama, died July 4 at a hospice center in Chicago. He was 90.

The cause was complications from bladder cancer, said a son-in-law, Steven Cohen.

Once described by the New York Times as “the Zelig of the American legal scene,” Mr. Mikva held high office in all three branches of government.