Leahy, Brock, and the FBI
The FBI investigates David Brock’s accusations against a Bush nominee.

October 11, 2001 3:10 p.m.

t the request of Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, the FBI has begun an investigation of allegations made by former conservative writer David Brock against Terry Wooten, a Bush White House nominee to the United States District Court in South Carolina.

Last August, Brock sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee accusing Wooten of illegally giving out secret FBI files in the early 1990s, when Wooten was a top aide to Republicans on the committee. At the time, Brock was writing a book that was highly critical of Anita Hill, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Brock, who has disavowed much of his old work and has admitted to knowingly publishing false information about the Thomas case, said Wooten gave him FBI material on Angela Wright, a woman who has said she was harassed by Thomas but did not testify at Thomas's confirmation hearings.

In his letter to the committee, Brock said, "Mr. Wooten handed me copies of several pages of Ms. Wright's raw FBI file....I removed the FBI material from his office and took it to my house in Northwest Washington, where I was writing the book."

At his confirmation hearing in late August, Wooten denied Brock's charge. "There is not one scintilla or one iota of truth to that allegation," he told the committee. A Washington Post account of the hearing reported that Leahy "indicated that he believed Wooten would be confirmed."

But on September 17, when much of the committee was deeply involved in antiterrorism legislation, Leahy sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft requesting an FBI investigation of Brock's story. "This is a serious allegation requiring further investigation," Leahy wrote, adding that "the committee cannot continue to process [Wooten's] nomination without further investigation..."

One of the issues apparently involved in the probe is whether Brock has any documentary evidence to back up his accusations. It is not clear whether Brock has provided anything to the committee, but FBI agents have contacted R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., the editor-in-chief of the Spectator, as well as Terry Eastland, the magazine's former publisher, to ask them if they know the whereabouts of Brock's notes.

When Brock and the magazine parted ways in late 1997, he left several boxes of materials at the Spectator's offices in Arlington, Virginia. The magazine's management sent him a number of written requests to pick up the materials. After several months, when Brock had not responded to the inquiries, the management threw the materials away. The FBI has asked Tyrrell and Eastland if they knew what was in the boxes, but it appears that neither they nor anyone else at the magazine knew the boxes' contents. Also, it is not known whether any of Brock's materials were sent to the Hoover Institution, which is handling much of the Spectator's archives.

Finally, it is not clear how extensive the FBI investigation will be — and how long Wooten's confirmation will be delayed. Leahy's letter to the Justice Department asks only that the FBI interview Brock, Wooten, and "any other individuals as the Bureau deems necessary."

Byron York was a writer for The American Spectator from 1996 to 2000.