Zelikow told ABC News he was under no prohibition that barred his conversations with Rove, and did not recall asking his assistant to stop logging his calls, although he did speak to her about leaving phone messages in a publicly visible place. "Two other people took my calls as well, and neither have a recollection" of Zelikow asking for calls not to be logged, he said. Further, Zelikow said 9/11 Commission general counsel Daniel Marcus did not raise the matter with Zelikow at the time.
Reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, Marcus declined to confirm or deny the events.
Zelikow flatly denied discussing the commission's work with Rove. "I never discussed the 9/11 Commission with him, not at all. Period."
What's more, the idea of Zelikow and Rove conspiring over the commission's work was unrealistic, the ex-director indicated. "I was not a very popular person in the Bush White House when this was going on. There's a lot of carryover of that to this day."
Holland reports that Shenon discovered some panel staffers believed Zelikow stopped them from submitting a report depicting Rice's performance as "amount[ing] to incompetence, or something not far from it."
"I don't think that staffers will bear that out," Zelikow said. Out of 85 staffers, half a dozen were disgruntled, Zelikow told ABC News. "Under the circumstances, that was a pretty low fraction," he said. "But they all talked to Shenon."
Halfway into the panel's operation, Zelikow told his bosses under oath of the once-hidden ties, Holland's blog says Shenon's book reports. Upon hearing the details, Shenon writes, Marcus concluded Zelikow "never should have been hired," according to Holland.
"That's not right," Marcus said when told of the account. "That's certainly not true."
Shenon directed calls to his publisher, Twelve Books, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group.
Cary Goldstein, a spokesman for Hachette, confirmed the blog's characterization of the book's contents, but said he could not confirm direct quotes.
"It's not a surprise," Goldstein said when asked his reaction to the leak of the book's details before its Feb. 5 publication date. "I think people are really curious to see what the report had looked like if it hadn't been neutered in [the panel's] effort to be unanimous."
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