Hagan writes that CBS president Leslie Moonves issued a statement on Jan. 10 in the wake of the arrival of the 224-page report on the investigation into CBS News' "60 Minutes Wednesday" assembled by an outside team comprising former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Associated Press head Louis Boccardi Jr. Moonves' statement dwelt on the failures of the employees involved in producing the disputed segment.

Prominent among his targets was executive producer Josh Howard, who, Moonves charged, "did little to assert his role as the producer ultimately responsible for the broadcast and everything in it. This mistake dealt a tremendous blow to the credibility of '60 Minutes Wednesday' and to CBS News in general." He added that the producer had been asked to resign, and the network was "taking a variety of actions to put this crisis behind us."

Writes Hagan: "Five weeks later, the crisis is not yet behind Mr. Moonves. And far from resolving the problem of the network’s credibility, the independent report commissioned by CBS appears instead to be leading to a confrontation, with defenders of both the ousted CBS staffers involved in the debacle and top CBS management asserting two different truths from the same document."

Howard is having none of it, according to Hagan. Nor are his two colleagues.

"Howard and two other ousted CBS staffers — his top deputy, Mary Murphy, and CBS News senior vice president Betsy West — haven’t resigned. And sources close to Mr. Howard said that before any resignation comes, the 23-year CBS News veteran is demanding that the network retract Mr. Moonves’ remarks, correct its official story line and ultimately clear his name."

The threat is ominous. According to radio host Laura Ingraham, Howard will seek copies of the e-mails related to Rathergate that passed between CBS executives. She added that the e-mails are said to be explosive and if revealed could badly damage the already crippled network.

Wrote Hagan: "Mr. Howard has also indicated to colleagues that he would subpoena specific CBS documents, including the e-mails of top executives. That might shed further light on what members of management were saying to each other ... after the segment aired."

Hagan says that CBS held Howard responsible but had ignored him when he asked management about the veracity of the Bush guard doc piece.

Hagan notes that on page 162, "the report says that it was Mr. Howard who made the first concerted effort to address the possibility that the segment had been in error."

Howard e-mailed West suggesting CBS News consider the possibility that it had been duped and that the documents could be a hoax.

West ignored the e-mail, putting the onus on Andrew Heyward, who ceded responsibility to the network’s public-relations man, Gil Schwartz, who works for Les Moonves.

West, Heyward and Schwartz "continued to defend the documents," according to Hagan. Moreover, Hagan reports, Howard believes that the report contradicts Moonves’ statement about Howard’s share of the blame.

Howard also believes, those sources told Hagan, that the report itself excludes evidence that would implicate top management at CBS and restore Howard’s reputation in the television news business.

Jay Goldberg, a civil litigator who has represented Donald Trump, told Hagan that the idea of asking employees to resign "is really offered by the employer for protection for any breach of contract" as "an inducement to the employee to walk away with his tail between his legs and put him in a position so he cannot sue."

According to Goldberg, if a chief executive made public statements about employees that cannot be supported by facts — i.e., by the narrative of the Thornburgh report or, worse, other unreported material — it could open the company up to trouble.

"They were very foolish to go public with an attack on these people, because they lose their immunity to be sued for defamation," Goldberg said. "Whereas if they had put these very same things in court paper, they could not be sued."

Martin Garbus, a First Amendment lawyer, told Hagan that Moonves' statement may well give Howard grounds for a defamation suit. "He has a claim," said Garbus. "Anything that they say bad about him, and that impugns his reputation in the business in which he’s in — basically, they're saying that he’s incompetent. That's not opinion, that’s specifically stating. One way in which you protect yourself from libel is that you always say 'in my opinion.' But [ Moonves] didn't say it. He's saying, 'The producer did this, the producer did that.'"

Serious questions are now being raised about the report itself, Hagan reveals.