TV journalist defends ethics in CIA leak trial

A television journalist deflected criticism of his ethics and credibility as the prosecution rested its case today in the CIA leak trial of former White House aide Lewis ’Scooter’ Libby.

NBC newsman Tim Russert got the kind of interrogation he usually gives on his Sunday television show Meet The Press, as lawyers flashed excerpts of his previous statements on a video monitor and asked him to explain inconsistencies.

Russert, who testified that he never discussed outed CIA operative Valerie Plame with Libby, was the final witness called by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Plame’s husband criticised the Bush administration’s Iraq policy in a leading newspaper and on television in 2003.

Libby, former chief of staff to vice president Dick Cheney, is on trial for perjury and obstruction of justice in the case, charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.

The trial has provided the jury and the public a rare glimpse into how the highly disciplined Bush administration dealt with the media and how reporters extract or are provided information from high-level sources

A law school graduate, Russert avoided several traps that Libby lawyer Theodore Wells laid before him.

He seemed uncomfortable at times, however, as Wells asked him to explain why he willingly told an FBI agent about a July 2003 conversation with Libby, then gave a sworn statement saying that he would not testify about that conversation because it was confidential.