WASHINGTON (AP) – William Bulger told lawmakers Thursday he had no idea where his fugitive mobster brother was and had never been interviewed by the FBI despite the bureau’s claims it was searching feverishly for James “Whitey” Bulger.

Bulger, the president of the University of Massachusetts and a prominent political figure in Massachusetts, revealed for the first time that two FBI agents arrived at his South Boston home last week, looking for his wife and asking his daughter for help finding Whitey Bulger.

Whitey Bulger, an FBI informant now on the agency’s “Ten Most Wanted” list, fled in 1995 after he was tipped by his FBI handler that he was to be indicted and implicated in 21 murders.

Members of the House Government Reform Committee are investigating the FBI’s handling of its mob informants and whether William Bulger knows his brother’s whereabouts. Lawmakers also want to know whether William Bulger sought to use his political influence to benefit himself and to punish authorities pursuing his brother.

“So eight years later, the FBI gets around to inquiring of you and your wife … as to the whereabouts of your brother?” Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., asked.

“That’s the first direct effort,” Bulger said.

For nearly four hours Bulger answered lawmakers questions, breaking his long public silence about his relationship with his brother.

But he irked lawmakers by resorting often to answers of “I don’t think so” and “I don’t believe so,” leading Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., to accuse him of having “selective memory loss.”

The interrogation focused largely on what Bulger knew and when he knew it. While lawmakers repeatedly said their aim is to end corruption in the FBI and its use of informants, much of the hearing probed details of William Bulger’s contacts with his brother’s associates and how he may have used his influence as state Senate president to help his brother or his enemies.

In the end, lawmakers said the polished politician broke little new ground in the complicated saga of Boston’s FBI corruption.

“It was so vanilla, so void of any passion, I’m not sure we’re going to learn much from his testimony,” said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn.

But William Bulger caught their interest when he revealed the agents’ visit on June 10.

Bulger said the two men identified themselves as FBI agents James Stover and J. Michael Doyle. They told his daughter, Kathleen, they wanted to talk with her mother, Bulger said. He and his wife were not home.

Bulger said the two men referred to the case of Eric Rudolph, recently captured in North Carolina. He said they told his daughter: “They’re tearing that town apart. That’s what will happen here. But if we can get someone in the family, just one person, to drop, say, something, that will help us arrest the fugitive, it will be over just like that. We will even help to rebuild your father’s reputation.” “

The FBI has said agents visited the house four days after Whitey Bulger disappeared, but Bulger said he did not remember that. Bulger said he was never interviewed by the FBI. If approached, he said, he would have referred them to his lawyer.

Angelo Rinchiuso, a spokesman in the FBI’s Boston office, declined to comment on Bulger’s testimony.

For years, congressional investigators, the media and the public had wondered what Bulger thought of his brother.

But Bulger shed no light on his brother’s whereabouts and said there is little he could have done to steer his brother from a life of crime.

“I was unable to penetrate the secretive life of my older brother,” Bulger said. “Jim had his own ways I could not possibly influence.”

He also talked for the first time about the brief telephone conversation he had with his brother after he fled. But, William Bulger said, they never discussed whether Whitey Bulger should turn himself in, and he never advised Whitey Bulger to stay away.

In subsequent years, William Bulger came to believe the FBI wanted his brother dead – especially after the media was leaked the news that Whitey Bulger had been an FBI informant.

Committee members encountered the insulated and protective nature of the South Boston neighborhood where the Bulgers grew up, alongside boys who later became FBI agents.

Shays summed up the saga this way: “I believe without any hesitation to say to you that this is a story about corrupt law enforcement on the federal, state and local level, but particularly the FBI. It’s a story of political corruption, deep and serious, and it’s a story of organized crime, and they all mixed together in this incredible cocktail.”

William Bulger’s testimony comes two months after the committee granted him immunity from prosecution. In December he was called before the committee, but refused to answer questions.

AP-ES-06-19-03 1928EDT