WASHINGTON (AP) – Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby is fighting to keep his grand jury testimony about the leak of a CIA operative’s name from being released and broadcast.

Mr. Libby’s grand jury testimony – the sworn statements he gave investigators about his conversations with Vice President Cheney and journalists – is at the heart of his perjury trial. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald plans to play hours of recordings of that testimony in court next week to bolster his case that Mr. Libby lied and obstructed the investigation.

Trial evidence is normally public and all exhibits in Mr. Libby’s case have been made public so far. Even though Mr. Fitzgerald successfully fought to get Mr. Libby’s full grand jury testimony admitted into evidence, Mr. Libby’s attorneys say the audiotapes should not be released outside the courtroom.

Mr. Libby’s defense attorney, William Jeffress, who successfully argued a Supreme Court case that kept the Watergate tapes from being released, said in court Thursday that grand jury tapes are never meant to be made public.

He said he knew of no case when such recordings have been released.

In the tapes, Mr. Libby discusses conversations he had regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame, the wife of a prominent Iraq war critic, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Ms. Plame’s identity was leaked to reporters in 2003.

Nobody was charged with the leak. Mr. Fitzgerald said Mr. Libby learned Ms. Plame’s identity from Mr. Cheney and discussed it with journalists. Mr. Libby says he forgot about his conversation with Mr. Cheney and, when he heard about Ms. Plame from a reporter weeks later, it struck him as new information.

Mr. Fitzgerald says Mr. Libby concocted that story to protect himself from prosecution because repeating rumors from reporters is less serious than repeating sensitive information from Mr. Cheney.

If the tapes are released, they could be broadcast on television news programs, radio stations and the Internet. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said he worried that would sensationalize an already public trial.

Attorneys for The Associated Press and more than a dozen other news organizations filed court documents Friday arguing that the tapes should be made public.

“We do not believe the defendant can identify a single case from any jurisdiction in which the release of audio or videotape evidence has ever been held to render a trial unfair,” the attorneys wrote.

Mr. Libby’s testimony is far less sensational, they wrote, than other tapes that have been released in court, such as 911 phone calls from inside the World Trade Center and FBI tapes from the Abscam investigation.

Judge Walton said he would consider the matter over the weekend.