Claim: Thompson worked for family planning

LOS ANGELES, July 6 (UPI) -- Former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., took a lobbying job in 1991 to ease federal abortion restrictions, The Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

Thompson accepted a lobbying assignment from a family-planning group to try to persuade White House officials to change a federal rule that prohibited abortion counseling at clinics that received federal funds, the newspaper said.

Minutes of a National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association board meeting indicate the group hired Thompson in 1991, but Thompson spokesman Mark Corallo denied Thompson lobbied for the organization.

"Fred Thompson did not lobby for this group, period," said Corallo.

Judith DeSarno, who headed the organization in 1991, said Thompson lobbied for the group for several months, and reported to her that he had "multiple conversations" with White House Chief of Staff John Sununu about the abortion rule.

Former Rep. Michael Barnes, D-Md., a colleague at the lobbying firm where Thompson worked, told the newspaper it was "absolutely bizarre" for Thompson to deny he lobbied against the abortion rule.

"I talked to him while he was doing it," said Barnes, "and I talked to (DeSarno) about the fact that she was very pleased with the work that he was doing for her organization."