By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 12, 2007

Defense Exhibit 1972, a tape-recorded interview from the "Imus in the Morning" radio show, is another of those revealing moments in the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"So . . . what happened?" radio host Don Imus asks NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell about her confusing reporting on an undercover CIA officer. "Were you drunk?"

"I obviously screwed up," Mitchell responds in the exchange, which Libby's defense hopes to play for the jury in coming days. "I guess I was drunk," she jokes.

Just when you thought it was impossible for more harm to come to the national news media's reputation, the defense in the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff is about to present its case.

Starting today, when Libby's attorneys try to show that he did not intentionally lie about his role in leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, they will rely heavily on a string of journalists as witnesses. In several ways, those witnesses will be asked to raise doubts about the testimony and accuracy of other reporters, and some may end up tarnishing themselves or their sources.

Libby, 56, is charged with lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters about Plame in the summer of 2003, during what prosecutors allege was a White House campaign to discredit her husband, outspoken war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV. Days after Wilson accused the administration of twisting intelligence he gathered on a CIA-sponsored mission as it defended the invasion of Iraq, Plame's classified CIA role was revealed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak. Libby, who has pleaded not guilty, is not charged with the leak itself.

Now the reporters Libby spoke to -- and some he did not -- are unhappily embroiled in the trial as witnesses for both sides.

This past week, a pillar of broadcast news -- Tim Russert, Washington bureau chief for NBC News -- was heard chortling on the air on Oct. 28, 2005, about the possibility that Bush administration officials would be indicted that day. That interview, also with Imus, helped the defense suggest that Russert, a star witness for the prosecution, may have held a grudge against Libby.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page was depicted as carrying water for the White House, insisting in print that it had crucial intelligence supporting the war that did not come from the White House. But Libby has testified that he urged then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz to leak self-serving parts of an intelligence report to the Journal because Wolfowitz had better connections there. That admission helped the prosecution suggest Libby was part of a White House campaign to discredit Wilson.

In the next several days, three reporters at The Washington Post, a senior New York Times editor, a Times Washington bureau reporter and a Newsweek magazine reporter are expected to take the stand.

Defense attorneys are keen to ask New York Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson about the accuracy of former Times reporter Judith Miller, a prosecution witness who said Libby told her about Plame in June 2003. They want Abramson to rebut Miller's testimony that she urged Abramson, then the Times's Washington bureau chief, to have the paper pursue the story about Wilson's wife working at the CIA. Abramson has been quoted as saying that Miller never made such a suggestion.

But the questioning could get into the gritty business of whether Abramson considered Miller to be accurate and impartial in her work. In the summer of 2003, the time of the events critical to the case, editors told Miller that, because of flaws in previous stories about whether Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction, she could not write stories alone on intelligence regarding Iraq.

Defense attorneys also are eager to question Mitchell about the memory and credibility of Russert, her NBC colleague. Mitchell professed on CNBC's "Capital Report" in October 2003 that it was "widely known" among intelligence reporters such as herself that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Her network issued a statement saying that was inaccurate, and she said in an interview with Imus that she didn't know "what the heck I was talking about."

Libby's defense argued that Mitchell may have told Russert -- who testified for two days last week -- about the CIA operative but later wanted to back away from her assertion of knowledge. If she did know the information, they said, it would bolster Libby's contention that he learned about Plame's identity in a July 10, 2003, telephone call with Russert.

Russert said that was not possible because he did not hear of Plame until several days later.

"Now it turns out his right-hand person, Andrea Mitchell, in October 2003 has said something that totally blows up his core statement that he didn't know about the wife," defense attorney Theodore Wells Jr. told U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton in arguing to play the Mitchell tape for the jury. "He has admitted that if she knew, he knew, and the whole team would have known."

Walton said he will rule today on whether Mitchell's testimony is relevant.

The defense also has said it may call Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward. He learned about Plame from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage in June 2003 but said he did not disclose that information because he wanted to avoid being subpoenaed. Woodward told prosecutors what he knew after Libby was indicted in 2005, and he apologized to Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. for not sharing information on a major story.

Woodward's testimony could help bolster Libby's contention that there was no White House campaign to discredit Wilson and that other reporters knew about Plame before the time that prosecutors say Libby began to discuss her.

Also on the defense witness list are Post reporters Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler, Newsweek's Evan Thomas, and the Times' David E. Sanger. All are expected to testify that they talked with Libby during that time but that he never mentioned Plame to them.

The defense is expected to use their testimony to raise doubts about the credibility of other key prosecution witnesses.