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Libby Lawyers Pepper Cooper About Rove
Cooper also said he didn't take any notes on that exchange and that he had posed his question to Libby "off the record." Later Cooper said off the record information cannot be attributed to the person but can be used to go get the information from others.
Libby attorney Jeffress pounded on Cooper's acknowledgments and also drew the jury's attention to the extensive notes and memos to Time editors that Cooper produced after his talk with Rove.
  This Artist rendering shows journalist Matthew Cooper, left, questioned by William H. Jeffress, Jr., center, a member of I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby"s, legal team, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007 at federal court in Washington. (AP Photo/Dana Verkouteren) (Dana Verkouteren - AP) 
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Jeffress asked Cooper if he ever asked Libby where he'd heard about Wilson's wife.
"I did not," Cooper replied.
His voice dripping with disbelief, Jeffress asked Cooper how he could take his exchange with Libby as confirmation.
"I took it as confirmation," Cooper said.
"Why didn't you put it in your memo to your editors?" Jeffress asked.
"I can't explain that," Cooper replied. "It was late in the day. I didn't write it down, but it is my memory."
"If somebody tells you something off the record, do you take it as confirmation?" Jeffress asked incredulously.
"I did in this case," Cooper replied. "You can use it to go to others and get a more fulsome account" that can be printed.
Earlier Wednesday the first journalist to contradict Libby's version, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, acknowledged she could not be "absolutely, absolutely certain" that she first heard about Plame from Libby.
But she added, "I have no memory of a prior discussion with anyone else" and her notes do not reflect any prior discussion.
Miller testified she had two conversations about Plame with Libby well before Libby says he learned from another reporter that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.
Jeffress advised the judge the defense wants to call Times' managing editor Jill Abramson to rebut Miller. Abramson was Miller's bureau chief in Washington in 2003. Jeffress said he anticipated the newspaper would try to quash a subpoena for her appearance and the defense might need time to fight that battle in court.
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Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.
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