Bob Novak, the columnist named in the Wilson affair is denying that the White House was involved in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.
Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson’s report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson’s involvement in the mission for her husband — he is a former Clinton administration official — they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives…
Novak’s story has been consistant – he called the CIA, they didn’t spike the story. If the CIA has phone records that corroborate Novak’s story, the Wilson scandal may be far less of a scandal than it appears.
