Rove and Libby: Hubris Authors Never Contacted Us

August 29, 2006, 8:24 a.m.

Rove and Libby: Hubris Authors Never Contacted Us
The CIA-leak investigation book -- without two key figures

By Byron York

Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, the new book by the Nation’s David Corn and Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, is the most in-depth single account yet of the CIA-leak investigation. But representatives of two central figures in the case, former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby and top White House aide Karl Rove, say the authors never got in touch with them, much less interviewed them, for the book.

“Neither Isikoff nor Corn ever contacted us to discuss anything about the book,” says Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for the Libby defense team.

“We were never contacted,” says Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove.

Hubris was rushed into release before its scheduled October publication date, and copies of the book are not yet available publicly. But throughout the CIA-leak affair, Corn’s reporting has relied heavily on former ambassador Joseph Wilson, the husband of CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson. Corn was, in fact, the first person to publish a story explicitly raising the possibility that Mrs. Wilson was a “deep-cover” CIA officer. Based on an interview with Wilson (who Corn said did not talk about his wife’s status), Corn wrote on July 16, 2003 — just two days after the original Robert Novak column that started the CIA leak controversy — that “a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as ‘nonofficial cover’ and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material.”

”The Wilson smear was a thuggish act,” Corn, who is also the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, concluded. Today, Corn is posting updates about Hubris at his website, bushlies.com.

In response to an e-mail asking whether he and Isikoff had contacted Rove and Libby, Corn responded:

In an excerpt of Hubris published in Newsweek, Isikoff writes that Novak “caused a huge stir when he revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer.” But when it was originally published, Novak’s column caused virtually no stir at all — until Corn published an article claiming that Mrs. Wilson worked under "nonofficial cover" for the CIA. And even then, there wasn’t much notice until New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer picked up on Corn’s article and demanded an investigation. Those demands, combined with a leaked letter to the Justice Department from then-CIA Director George Tenet calling for an investigation, eventually created the political pressure that caused the Justice Department to begin a formal probe, which continues today under special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

— Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time.