Posted on 02/07/2007 2:32:08 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - NBC newsman Tim Russert testified Wednesday he never discussed a CIA operative with vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, contradicting Libby's version to a grand jury in the CIA leak investigation.
The testimony came as prosecutors prepared to rest their perjury case against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.
Russert, the host of "Meet the Press," testified about a July 2003 phone call in which Libby complained about a colleague's coverage. Libby has said that, at the end of the call, Russert brought up war critic Joseph Wilson and mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.
"That would be impossible," Russert testified Wednesday. "I didn't know who that person was until several days later."
That discrepancy is at the heart of Libby's perjury and obstruction trial. He is accused of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame.
During Libby's 2004 grand jury testimony, he said Russert told him "all the reporters know" that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Libby now acknowledges he had learned about Plame a month earlier from Cheney but says he had forgotten about it and learned it again from Russert as if new.
Libby subsequently repeated the information about Plame to other journalists, always with the caveat that he had heard it from reporters, he has said. Prosecutors say Libby concocted the Russert conversation to shield him from prosecution for revealing information from government sources.
Plame's identity was leaked shortly after her husband began accusing the Bush administration of doctoring prewar intelligence on Iraq. The controversy over the faulty intelligence was a major story in mid-2003.
Given that news climate, defense attorney Theodore Wells was skeptical about Russert's account.
"You have the chief of staff of the vice president of the United States on the telephone and you don't ask him one question about it?" Wells asked. He followed up moments later with, "As a newsperson who's known for being aggressive and going after the facts, you wouldn't have asked him about the biggest stories in the world that week?"
"What happened is exactly what I told you," Russert replied.
Russert originally told the FBI that he couldn't rule out discussing Wilson with Libby but had no recollection of it, according to an FBI report Wells read in court. Russert said Wednesday he did not believe he said that.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has spent weeks making the case that Libby was preoccupied with discrediting Wilson. Several former White House, CIA and State Department officials testified that Libby discussed Plame with them — all before the Russert conversation.
Fitzgerald has said Russert would be his final witness. Prosecutors spent the past few days playing audiotapes of Libby's grand jury testimony in court. In the final hours of those tapes Wednesday, Libby described a tense mood in the White House as the leak investigation began.
Though President Bush was publicly stating that nobody in the White House was involved in the leak, Libby knew that he himself had spoken to several reporters about Plame. He said he did not bring that up with Bush and was uncertain whether he discussed it with Cheney.
Libby did remember one conversation with Cheney, however, in which the vice president seemed surprised when told by his aide where Libby had learned Plame's identity.
"From me?" Cheney asked, tilting his head, Libby recalled.
Libby said he had forgotten that Cheney was his original source until finding his own handwritten notes on the conversation. The notes predated the Russert phone call by more than a month.
___
Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.
I sat in for most of the cross examination today. It did not go well for Russert. I'll post a report after I have dinner.
Thanks, kristinn. I wait with bated breath.
Maybe, but Shep on FNC was all atwitter with what Russert did to Libby. Doesn't that count for SOMETHING??? (Snicker)
Please ping me when you post your report.
Russert wants to keep his job!
Because of that .. I don't believe ANYTHING any reporter says - especially NBC, ABC or CNN
Well, except for the small fact that this entire case was brought about by investigating a non crime. I would say it has quite a bit to do with Wilson.
That's one of the things that mystifies me about Hannity. He'll have this lying sack of potatoes on his radio show and call him friend, all the while this traitor is seeking to undermine the President and stab the troops in the back.
Hard to say why folks do what they do these days.
I used to watch and listen quite a bit, now it is a rare occasion for either.
Same here.
No, the case is about Libby lying. It's really quite simple.
Doesn't matter if the original case was a crime or a non-crime.
It may involve a non-crime to most of us, but David Corn and Joe Wilson think a crime was committed, and that's all the proof Fitzgerald needed that there was a crime.
Sure it does. If there was no original law broken it should not have even come to this in the first place. Fitz knew that, he knew he couldn't charge anyone for any crime of "outing" which is why this perjury nonsense is all he can come up with.
Well he HAD to charge somebody for something! Look at all the money and time wasted! This is such a joke as to be ridiculous, and it's all about 1) hatred for Bush and 2) payback for Clinton.
Ping me, please.
I'd love a recollection of Russerts face when Wells played the 'Imus'-Christmas Eve in the newsroom tape....
I hate to be a stickler but the original poster asked why Wilson was not being called to explain all of his lies. My response was that this case is not about Wilson, it is about Libby and Libby lying to Fitz.
Sorry to burst anyone's bubble but the only guy walking the plank in this one is Libby. Perjury is not nonsense (ask Clinton), if Libby did lie then more fool him and he deserves what he gets.
If of course no original law was broken and Libby gets done for perjury , then we have to ask why did he lie?
Sigh it's never the crime (even if there wasn't one) it's always the coverup.
When Clinton got a blowjob he never broke the law, what did him in was lying about it.
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