Ex-Aide To Gonzales Tapped for No. 2 Post

The Bush administration yesterday announced the nomination of Timothy E. Flanigan, a former White House lawyer and a senior vice president at Tyco International Ltd., to take over as second-in-command at the Justice Department.

The nomination of Flanigan, 51, could prompt a debate in the Senate because of his involvement in setting interrogation and detention policies while he was at the White House and because the ongoing prosecutions of two former Tyco executives are being overseen by the deputy attorney general's office.

Flanigan, married and father of 14, would succeed Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, who announced earlier this year that he would resign in the fall. Comey has garnered bipartisan praise.

Flanigan worked under Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales when Gonzales served as White House counsel. Officials have said Flanigan was involved in some of the most controversial decisions to come out of that office after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including the finding that the Geneva Conventions' protections did not apply to suspected terrorists captured on the battlefield.

He was also involved in discussions that led to a Justice Department memo, since withdrawn, dramatically narrowing the definition of what constitutes torture, officials have said.

Flanigan joined Tyco as senior vice president and general counsel in November 2002, after two former executives now on trial in New York left the company. L. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz are accused of misrepresenting the company's financial condition and improperly taking bonuses.

Agency spokesman Kevin Madden said he could not address whether Flanigan would recuse himself from the Tyco-related cases or from other work handled by the department's Corporate Fraud Task Force.