USA

LA Weekly: The Novak Affair - How I broke the CIA-leak story, and why nobody
noticed by David Corn

I fought the Republican spin machine, and the Republican spin machine won.

The battlefield was a Fox News Channel studio. I had been booked to
discuss my new book (plug, plug: The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the
Politics of Deception), but I was also told I would be talking about the
Wilson-CIA-leak affair. That was natural, for (plug, plug) I was the
first journalist to report that a July 14 piece by conservative columnist
Robert Novak was possible evidence of a possible White House crime. In that
article, Novak, citing “senior administration officials,” disclosed
that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA operative.
Wilson had challenged the administration on its Iraq policy —
particularly its use of the (now infamous and still unproven) claim
that Saddam Hussein had been uranium shopping in Niger — and the column
seemed to be an administration effort to undermine or punish Wilson. The
leakers also may have broken a federal law prohibiting the identification of
covert officers. I noted that in The Nation two days after the Novak column
appeared. But the leak did not become major news until two months
later, when the CIA asked the Justice
Department to investigate the White House.