After grilling, banker is praised

One of the directors on the bank’s CEO selection committee, NStar chief Thomas May, said the Wellesley resident distinguished himself at Tuesday’s hearing of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform while fielding an onslaught of tough questions.

“Brian had a tough assignment,’’ said May, who also testified. “When you are in a leadership position, you sometimes find yourself in these situations, and he met the challenge just fine.’’

Bank of America’s chief executive, Kenneth D. Lewis, said through a spokesman that Moynihan was “clear, poised, and persuasive.’’ Moynihan, who runs the company’s sprawling consumer banking unit, is believed to be one of the top internal candidates to take over when Lewis retires at year’s end.

The comments came a day after two Democrats on the oversight committee, chairman Edolphus “Ed’’ Towns of New York and Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said they found Moynihan unconvincing.

Towns told Bloomberg News that Moynihan “didn’t show the kind of leadership a company would seem to need.’’ Cummings said he found parts of Moynihan’s testimony “not believable,’’ including Moynihan’s contention that he thought former general counsel Timothy Mayopoulos was let go as part of a downsizing, but did not know for sure. Moynihan replaced Mayopoulos Dec. 10, nine days after Mayopoulos advised bank executives they did not have legal grounds to back out of the Merrill deal.

Some financial analysts and corporate governance specialists suggested yesterday that the comments could damage Moynihan’s chances of becoming CEO, even though it’s not uncommon for Congress to criticize corporate executives.

Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware and a Bank of America stockholder, said government has taken an extraordinary role in companies that receive taxpayer-funded aid, such as forcing the removal of the CEOs of both General Motors and insurance giant AIG. Elson said the government will probably play a significant role in picking Bank of America’s next leader. Bank of America received $45 billion in aid during the financial crisis, including $20 billion to help it absorb losses from acquiring Merrill Lynch.

“You have a board that is dominated by government,’’ Elson said. “If some members of government are critical of the candidate, it won’t help his chances.’’

A bank spokesman, James Mahoney, said the company developed a thorough search process with guidance from federal regulators. But he said the search committee and board of directors would make the ultimate decision. An announcement is expected around Thanksgiving.

Several bank officials noted the bank is regulated by the Federal Reserve, not Congress. The Treasury also has a role in overseeing Bank of America, because it issued the $45 billion in aid. Neither agency would comment yesterday on its role in the CEO process.

Some Republican members of Congress argue that government has already meddled too much in how Bank of America is run, including pushing it to buy Merrill Lynch, and should steer clear of the CEO selection process.

“When it comes to how to successfully run a business and put it in the green, Congress is the last place people should be looking for advice,’’ said Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Representative Darrell Issa of California, the senior Republican on the oversight committee.

A Harvard Business School professor, Rakesh Khurana, said that in the best of times picking a new CEO is akin to picking the pope, in which outsiders can rely only on smoke signals. But now he said the search process has become more complicated because of the government’s involvement in companies, and there is scant history to suggest what the outcome would be.

“This is new territory for US corporations,’’ Khurana said.

Todd Wallack can be reached at twallack@globe.com.