Tyco Lobbyist Urges Senators to Support Tyco Lawyer Nomination

A lobbyist for Tyco International Ltd. is urging the Senate to support a top Tyco executive nominated by the president to the second-highest post in the Justice Department.

Edward P. Ayoob acknowledged Tuesday that he had been lobbying senators to approve the president’s choice of Timothy E. Flanigan as deputy U.S. attorney general. The lobbyist said he was acting on his own, not as an agent of Tyco.

Flanigan, 52, has been chief counsel at Tyco since 2002, when he resigned as deputy counsel at the White House to take the job at the industrial conglomerate.

Ayoob is a former top aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). The lobbyist also formerly worked with Jack Abramoff at the Washington law firm Greenberg Traurig.

Ayoob, who called Flanigan a friend, said, “He is a man of the highest integrity, and I wanted my colleagues to know it.”

Flanigan’s selection as top aide to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales has provoked controversy. Some senators questioned his role supervising a Tyco lobbying campaign two years ago conducted by Abramoff, now the subject of congressional and criminal investigations.

In 2003, Flanigan engaged Abramoff to help Tyco fight a bill that would have imposed higher taxes on the firm, which had moved its corporate headquarters offshore, to Bermuda.

In a written response to questions from Senate Judiciary Committee members, Flanigan said that at Tyco, he engaged Abramoff after Greenberg Traurig partners advised that “Mr. Abramoff had good relationships with members of Congress, including Rep. Tom DeLay.”

Flanigan also told the committee that sometime after Abramoff was involved, he “told us that he had contact with Mr. Karl Rove,” a top political advisor to President Bush.

Tyco’s lobbying effort against the tax bill and other legislation aimed at offshore-based firms was successful.

In his written response to questions, Flanigan said that while supervising the Greenberg lobbying effort, he had regular contact with Ayoob “and, less frequently, with Mr. Abramoff.”

The nominee also wrote that Tyco discovered after an internal investigation that payments it made to a consulting firm recommended by Abramoff, GrassRoots Interactive, had been diverted to “entities controlled by Mr. Abramoff and were not used in furtherance of lobbying efforts on behalf of Tyco.”

He said Tyco had concluded that the diversion was “in violation of Mr. Abramoff’s ethical, fiduciary and contractual obligations to Tyco.” The payments totaled $1.5 million.

Abramoff, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

Flanigan also responded to a series of questions about his role as a White House counsel in the review of policies for the handling of detainees and whether detainees could be subjected to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

He said he would not advise the attorney general or others “that U.S. personnel are permitted to engage in cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

Joe Shoemaker, a spokesman for Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), said other questions posed to Flanigan had yet to be answered.

Flanigan’s nomination is expected to be delayed until the Judiciary Committee acts next week on the Supreme Court chief justice nomination of John G. Roberts Jr.