WASHINGTON (AP) – NBC newsman Tim Russert testified Wednesday he never discussed a CIA operative with vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, contradicting Mr. 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 Cheney’s former chief of staff.

Mr. Russert, the host of “Meet the Press,” testified about a July 2003 phone call in which Mr. Libby complained about a colleague’s coverage. Mr. Libby has said that, at the end of the call, Mr. Russert brought up war critic Joseph Wilson and mentioned that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA.

“That would be impossible,” Mr. Russert testified. “I didn’t know who that person was until several days later.”

That discrepancy is at the heart of Mr. Libby’s perjury and obstruction trial. He is accused of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters regarding Mr. Wilson’s wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame.

During Mr. Libby’s 2004 grand jury testimony, he said Mr. Russert told him “all the reporters know” that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. Mr. Libby now acknowledges he had learned about Ms. Plame a month earlier from Mr. Cheney but says he had forgotten about it and learned it again from Mr. Russert as if new.

Mr. Libby subsequently repeated the information about Ms. Plame to other journalists, always with the caveat that he had heard it from reporters, he has said. Prosecutors say Mr. Libby concocted the Mr. Russert conversation to shield him from prosecution for revealing information from government sources.

Ms. Plame’s identity was leaked shortly after her husband began accusing the Mr. 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 Mr. 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?” Mr. 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,” Mr. Russert replied.

Mr. Russert originally told the FBI that he couldn’t rule out discussing Mr. Wilson with Mr. Libby but had no recollection of it, according to an FBI report Mr. Wells read in court. Mr. Russert said Wednesday he did not believe he said that.

Mr. Russert also acknowledged that in November 2003, shortly after the investigation began, that he told an FBI agent that he had not discussed Mr. Wilson’s wife with Mr. Libby. The NBC News reporter subsequently resisted a subpoena for his testimony, but he agreed to give it after negotiations with Mr. Fitzgerald’s office.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has spent weeks making the case that Mr. Libby was preoccupied with discrediting Mr. Wilson. Several former White House, CIA and State Department officials testified that Mr. Libby discussed Mr. Plame with them – all before the Russert conversation.

Mr. Fitzgerald has said Mr. Russert would be his final witness. Prosecutors spent the past few days playing audiotapes of Mr. Libby’s grand jury testimony in court. In the final hours of those tapes Wednesday, Mr. Libby described a tense mood in the White House as the leak investigation began.

Though Mr. Bush was publicly stating that nobody in the White House was involved in the leak, Mr. Libby knew that he himself had spoken to several reporters about Ms. Plame. He said he did not bring that up with Bush and was uncertain whether he discussed it with Mr. Cheney.

Mr. Libby did remember one conversation with Mr. Cheney, however, in which the vice president seemed surprised when told by his aide where Mr. Libby had learned Ms. Plame’s identity.

“From me?” Mr. Cheney asked, tilting his head, Mr. Libby recalled.

Mr. Libby said he had forgotten that Mr. Cheney was his original source until finding his own handwritten notes on the conversation. The notes predated the Mr. Russert phone call by more than a month.

Mr. Russert, who arrived in court on crutches because of a broken ankle, was scheduled to resume testifying Thursday. Prosecutors said they plan to rest their case after his testimony.

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Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

.LISTEN TO MR. LIBBY’S GRAND JURY TESTIMONY

Part One

http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/feb7/GX1T.mp3

Part Two

http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/feb7/GX2T.mp3